Needed
by Lornesgoldenhair
Summary: House returns from the Mayfield and Wilson struggles to come to terms with his feelings. Early Season 6 Spoilers to 'Epic Fail' then AU. H/W friendship, pre-slash, slash later. First H/W story, reviews welcome
1. Chapter 1

**Title: Needed**

**Author: lornesgoldenhair**

**Genre: House MD**

**Pairing: House/Wilson friendship and later Slash**

**Timescale: Early Season 6**

**Rating: T to be safe. M in later parts.**

**Date of Creation: September 2009**

**Summary: Wilson waits for House to return from the Mayfield. This is my first venture into the world of H/W. Be gentle and feedback is loved :-)  
**

**Spoilers: Through to Season 6.**

**Distribution: , otherwise just ask.**

**Disclaimer: Not mine. David Shore owns everything.**

_For a moment he held the cell phone level with his heart before daring to let out the breath he had been holding. In the silence of the apartment he could still hear House's words, metallic over the line, a faint echo in the background. Wilson imagined him hunched over a patient phone in a hallway, listening to Wilson say 'No,' and felt the tie of their friendship jerk and heave between them. He pictured House's face in the shadows, eyes trained on the receiver in his hand as his only friend abandoned him to whatever the Mayfield had in store._

_He dropped back to sit on the edge of the couch, not wanting to imagine more, unable to lean back into the comfort or the warm area in which he had been seated as the call had come in. A two minute phonecall and his head was a jumble of emotion. His thumb traced the edge of the cell and flipped it softly over and over in his palm. Wilson swallowed and sandwiching the cell between both hands brought them to his face in prayer, his nose pressed against his fingertips, his lips close to the place where he had last heard House's voice._

'_I'm doing the right thing,' he reminded himself and the quiet room._

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Not a single visit. Dr Nolan had advised against it. House didn't need to be encouraged to kick against the system, he would be too tempted to enlist Wilson as his partner in crime, and Wilson, full of guilt and his pathological need to show he cared, would of course comply. And then later House was co-operating. Having therapy. Engaging. And Wilson's arrival might be enough to knock him off course. House was 'finding himself' and 'dealing with issues' or some such psychobabble, and to be faced with his old friend might cause him to retreat in embarrassment and self loathing at what he feared he had become. He feared vulnerability most of all, and in particular being weak in the eyes of others. No, Dr Wilson, a visit would not be in Dr House's best interests.

So Wilson waited each week for a telephone call. Not from House, never from his friend. Since the night Wilson had said 'No,' House had not attempted to contact him again. Instead Wilson waited each week for Dr Nolan to update him. He received summary letters through the post and if he wished could access the notes but he never did. As House's medical proxy Wilson could pull the 'entitled to know' card and managed to convince himself that he was just monitoring progress but at the same time he loathed to pry into House's private therapy. Secretly he suspected he was receiving almost as much therapy from Dr Nolan as his friend was and he wouldn't want House overhearing that.

There was progress it seemed. But Wilson regarded it with cynical eyes. There was little he had not been through with House over the years and although the psychiatrist sounded convincing enough on the phone he could not shake the knowledge that he simply knew House better than anyone else. He knew what he was capable of, and deception was a strong point. He could manipulate if he needed to and House needed his medical license; he needed to comply with treatment. He could smile and make nice when he had to. Progress. Until Wilson saw it for himself he couldn't quite bring himself to believe.

Dr Nolan made reassuring noises and told Wilson he had expected as much. That House's behaviours had conditioned Wilson to expect his failure, his reversion to the path of least resistance, that it would take work on Wilson's part too to establish trust, to expect House to do well. House was the same; he expected no-one to have expectations of him. It would take time to adjust to the idea of Houseian self worth.

'We're discharging him later today,' Dr Nolan's deep voice intoned, 'I believe he's ready and I'm happy to recommend his license be reinstated in due course. '

Wilson's eyes were on the blotter on his desk, his mouth suddenly dry.

'Dr Wilson?'

He started and drew breath. House was coming home.

'Um.... that's... that's remarkable,' he said flatly. Doctor speak. Remarkable. Remarkable didn't express one iota of what he felt. New research was 'remarkable,' test results were 'remarkable,' 'remarkable' was scientific, cold and worthy of 'remark.' 'Remarkable' was empty of feeling. He could sense Nolan's analysis down the line before he spoke.

'That's a very interesting reaction,' he commented. 'Care to expand?'

Wilson chewed his lip and looked back at the blotter.

'He just didn't say... It's not quite how I imagined this would happen.'

'How did you imagine it?'

'I... I'm not sure,' he confessed. 'I guess I thought he'd call me or something, 'Wilson, come get me,' I mean I dropped him off there... it seems natural that I'd go and get him... right?'

'He 'springs the joint' and calls his sidekick to aid him with escape?' a warm chuckle across the miles.

Wilson's lip twitched and a short laugh escaped him. 'That's what I do,' he said sadly.

'He doesn't need you to do that anymore,' Nolan confirmed and Wilson pressed his lips together to prevent any noise escaping him. There was no malice in Nolan's words and yet Wilson felt a sharp pang in his gut when he heard them. He looked briefly upwards before allowing his head to fall into a nod. He should be pleased, shouldn't he?

'I...have to go,' he said.

'Mmhmm,' a kind noise laced with unspoken understanding. 'Dr Wilson?'

'Yeah?' short, more breathless than he had expected the word to be.

'He'll contact you.'

'Sure, thanks.' He flipped the cell shut, suddenly needing to end the conversation. _He'll contact you._ Would he? He hadn't so far and it had been weeks. There was a chance that if House really was healing he simply didn't need his enabling friend any more. What was it House had said? 'You're attracted to the bright shine of my neediness.' Wilson smiled sadly at that. The pair of them were as messed up as each other, perhaps House had identified Wilson as part of his dysfunction and decided to leave dysfunction behind. Perhaps he was doing now what Wilson had tried to do after Amber's death, move away, move on. Perhaps House associated him with pain, with the infarction and with Vicodin, with Amber and hallucination and loss. Perhaps he _had_ changed, made progress, perhaps he _wanted_ to be healthy. Perhaps Wilson wasn't healthy?

Wilson swept his hand across his face and towards the nape of his neck, kneading the tension which had gripped the muscles there.

House wouldn't change. There would be a reason for this silence. He wouldn't be nearly as healed as Nolan made out and he'd reappear in Wilson's office demanding a 'script with some crack theory about his rehab. He'd dismiss the whole thing and regain his license and lurch through life as screwed up and demanding as ever before. And Wilson would be there to pick up the pieces and drive him home from bars and have his food stolen just like he always had been. He would still play his role; he would still have his place. He would still be needed.

He stopped massaging, his inner monologue calming him slightly, and let his hand fall back to the desk, fingers covering the cell phone.

_Just call me._

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Too many fries. The sideplate burgeoned with them. Wilson picked at one and then sliced his baguette into two. He only ever ate half; he always ordered twice as much as needed. He glanced up around the cafeteria and then back at the table and the cell phone which looked bleakly back at him. Picked it up, flicked it open, checked it had a signal. Put it back down again. Flicked it open, checked the time. One thirty. Flipped it shut. He ate another fry, took a swig of soda.

Movement beside him and Wilson jumped, locked eyes with Foreman.

'Oh... hey,' he muttered, he tried to quell the disappointment and picked at the lettuce sticking out between the bread.

Foreman plonked himself opposite and cocked an eyebrow at his colleague.

'No appetite?' he asked.

'Not really.'

'Heard House was coming out,' he said conversationally. The weight of his words hung in the air expectantly.

Wilson glanced up quickly. 'Who told you?'

'Cuddy,' his tone matter-of-fact. Foreman lent forward and pilfered a fry from the sideplate. Wilson's jaw twitched.

'Right,' Wilson said.

'You heard from him?'

'No,' a grumbled admission.

'Figures...'

'How?'

'They way you keep checking your damn cell phone kind of gives it away,' Foreman's knowing smile was irritating him. The way he stole another fry irritated him more. Wilson lent across the table and removed the fries from Foreman's reach.

'Did you want something?' Wilson asked struggling to keep the pleasant tone in his voice. Foreman looked at him steadily for a moment before withdrawing a file.

'Consult,' he explained. Wilson let out a long breath, pulled the blue file towards him. Foreman sat back, knitting his hands together in his lap, watching coolly as the oncologist leafed through the papers. Every now and then his eyes flickered to the dark screen of his cell.

'He'll call,' Foreman said by way of reassurance but Wilson pretended not to hear, straining to focus instead on the patient's blood films.

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'It's very treatable,' he was saying, the words falling from him on autopilot, his sympathetic expression fixed mask like over his features, 'After the surgery we'll give you a short course of chemo, the side effects aren't pretty but there's a five year survival of 80%,' the mask shifted to an encouraging but understanding smile, 'I know it must be pretty scary right now but...'

The cell phone blared from his desk and Wilson paled, his heart leaping. He looked back at his patient, a young woman with taut features and eyes that pleaded with him to make things OK again. The screen on the phone flashed insistently, 'Private Number.'

'I.. um... I'm sorry I really have to take this,' he grabbed for the phone and stood too fast, chair screeching back and hitting his cabinets. He was on the balcony in seconds scrabbling to open the cell.

'House?'

'Wilson?'

His heart rate slowed. Cuddy.

'Have you heard from him?' she asked.

'No.'

He looked out across the courtyard beneath him, subconsciously scanning the crowd milling in and out of the building. He looked beyond to the grounds of the hospital, golden light of early fall evening picking out the colours of the trees. It had been May when he had left him at the psych hospital. Now the leaves were starting to turn and there was a chill in the air.

'I think he got out around lunchtime,' Cuddy was saying, the smallest hint of concern in her voice, 'I thought he would call... one of us?'

'Well he hasn't,' Wilson snapped slightly, his eyes moving from one person to the next.

'We'll I'll let you know if he does,' she was trying to sound kind. Wilson muttered a thanks and a curt goodbye and closed the cell again. He glared at it, resentful of the start it had given him; he could feel the slightest tremble of adrenaline in his hands and a prickle of sweat on his back. Behind the glass of his office he could feel his patient's eyes on him, waiting quietly, needing him to go back and reassure some more. He rested both hands on the parapet and took a few steadying breaths before heading back inside.

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He had gone home via House's office at around seven. It had been in darkness, nothing disrupted; held in suspension for its owner's return. Papers in an in tray stacking slowly, envelopes Cameron had opened in his absence labelled carefully with post-its. 'Completed,' 'forwarded,' and 'for review.' The battered lounger in the corner uninhabited, the TV silent, the standby light from the computer monitor blinking slowly, a single orange glow like a heartbeat, like something slept there. Furniture creaked as the room cooled, the heating timed for 'off' when the day shift left. Wilson stood in the darkness and breathed in the smell of polish and carpet cleaner and the faintest trace of someone who had once been there. He rested a hand on the back of House's chair and waited, eyes flickering shut, hand finding its way to his cell, turning it, turning it, the weight of it solid in his palm.

He opened the blank screen, found a number.

_House, do you ever charge your cell?_

_It recharges? I just keep buying new batteries._

Two rings, three. Voicemail.

'This is House. Leave a message. I'm probably ignoring you.'

'Hey...' his voice struggled for volume so he cleared his throat, 'Hey, House, it's me. I heard you got out today so um... I just wondered how you were doing. We should... catch up...' Wilson's words trailed off and the tone sounded.

'We should catch up,' he repeated to the room. 'That is so lame.'

He drove past Baker Street, slowing at House's apartment. No lights. The engine ticked over as he considered knocking on the door.

_I'm probably ignoring you._

Wilson looked up at the dark windows and felt his hands grip the steering wheel. He still had a key, he could check. Perhaps House was sitting in there in the dark.

And then what? The guy is just out of an institution, maybe he wants some space. He's had to share a room, he's had to divulge all his innermost secrets, participate in 'group,' maybe he just wants his own bed and a bit of peace. Maybe he wouldn't react well to Wilson wading into his living room. Maybe he just didn't want company. Maybe, just maybe...

_Maybe he doesn't need me._

Wilson pressed the gas pedal and drew away.

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The beer had gone warm. Wilson was in the corner of his couch with the bottle resting against his stomach. He'd had perhaps three sips before his mind had clouded over with thought and he'd left the condensation from the glass to leech through his shirt and cling to him coldly. It was after midnight. House was probably asleep by now, wherever he was. Cuddy had called again around ten with no news. She had muttered platitudes about giving House time; he'd talk to them when ready.

'Shouldn't we be more concerned than this?' Wilson had asked exasperated, 'he's just out of the unit and he's contacted none of his friends. We have no idea where he is or what he's doing, he could be anywhere...'

'Dr Nolan wouldn't have let him out if he wasn't sure House was safe,' Cuddy spoke slowly, emphasising 'safe.'

'Dr Nolan doesn't know him like we do.'

'Dr Nolan has spent the last four months getting to know him, he probably knows things we don't, he's the best in his field and we should trust him. House will have follow up, he'll have appointments to attend, they'll be keeping an eye on him.'

'They're not keeping an eye on him tonight.'

'He's probably exhausted. I know this is hard but we have to be patient. He'll contact us.'

'People keep saying that but...'

'He'll contact us, James, if he needs to.'

She spent another ten minutes arguing with him before hanging up. Unbelievable. How could she be so calm? Wilson had toyed with driving back to Baker Street and then debated with himself as to why he found that idea so difficult. If House wasn't there it would do no harm. If he was and didn't let Wilson in, Wilson wasn't sure he could cope. In the end something inside him needed House to come to him and something in him doubted that he would. He peeled the warm bottle from his shirt and took a large chug of it, eyes heavy with the fatigue of worry.

Wilson scooted lower on the couch and tried to settle himself there, the faint chimes of the mantel clock ringing in the back of his mind. He didn't want to go to bed and lie there under empty covers. His place had always been on the couch.

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_Tap tap tap._

_Chime._

Wilson's eyes shot open and flew to the clock. One thirty.

_Tap tap tap._

The wood trembled a little under the knocking.

'House?' he asked himself.

The knocking stopped and with it Wilson, half way to the threshold. He ran a hand through mussed hair and fidgeted with his shirt hem, untucked and creased around his hips. He smoothed it down and noticed the beer label had leeched colour on the cream fabric. A shuffle from outside, a hesitant noise.

Wilson unhooked the chain and drew back the door.

House's eyes met his immediately.

Wilson waited, his hand suspended on the door frame, looking at this person before him whom he had watched vanish into the Mayfield months before. He couldn't say a word, he didn't know what words meant anymore and could only feel the rush of adrenaline and nausea and fear in his guts. And there was relief too. In those seconds he took in every detail. The new grey in House's shorter hair, the new lines around his eyes, his height and breadth, the hunch of one shoulder as he leaned on his cane, the ridiculous T-Shirt he wore. Big yellow smiley face, colours faded but still perceptible. Fading out or fading in? Wilson's eyes flickered over and around him as though checking for damage.

'House,' he managed.

'Hey,' House's eyes were wary. Blue and wary.

'I was worried, Cuddy.... I mean... we didn't hear from you...' Wilson babbled.

'I went for a walk.'

Wilson raised his eyebrows. 'Your leg...?'

'Hurts.'

'So you went for a walk?'

'I've been a little cooped up,' House said grimacing. He glanced over Wilson's shoulder into the apartment and then down at his cane. Wilson followed his eye line and found his knapsack slung at his feet.

'Have you been home?' Wilson asked.

'No,' a short simple answer, an uncomfortable shift of weight. A pause, and one House seemed to struggle to end for a second but he did nonetheless. 'Last time I was there...' he started, his jaw working with the effort of divulging vulnerability.

Wilson nodded in understanding and relieved House of the need to expand further. Now it was his turn to look back into his apartment and he kneaded his lips together trying hard to gauge the situation. Weeks had past, he had stayed away, he had told House 'No,' he wished he could help but he couldn't... and now he didn't know where to begin. Weeks of wishing he could just see the man, talk things through, do his 'thing' as the communicator in the friendship, and here he was in the small hours of the night, face to face with him and completely unable to start.

'House...' he tried.

'I need somewhere to stay,' House blurted out quickly, 'That isn't my apartment,' he clarified. House dragged his eyes quickly from the floor to look at Wilson. There was something lost in there seeking the familiar.

'Well... '

House's face twitched in an awkward show of suppressed emotion. 'I need... someone around me. It's part of the deal, you get discharged and then...' he trailed off looking off to the side.

'They'd prefer you to have someone... close?'

'Apparently it helps me 'readjust' or something,' House dismissed, 'Anyway I figured you'd be the one. I doubt Cuddy will want me anywhere near her after my little show of the imagination and you know its protocol or whatever that we Crazies have a babysitter so...'

'Dr Nolan never mentioned...' Wilson stopped, pinned by House's gaze begging him not to finish.

_Just go with the story Wilson, go along with the charade and he'll be in here raiding your fridge and watching your movies and being House. Question this and he'll be out that door again. _

Wilson nodded, accepting the knowledge that passed between them silently. The door moved under his hand before he could finish the thoughts and then House stooped and grabbed his bag, limping past to the couch and collapsing there. He paused for a second before reaching for Wilson's warm beer.

Wilson leaned against the door, closing it with a click under his weight, watching as the life came back into his apartment. Watching as House manoeuvred his right leg over his left until his sneakers were propped on the coffee table. Watching him help himself to the remote, settle into the couch, fight with Wilson's stupid scatter cushions.

'It's good to see you,' Wilson said to House's back and was rewarded with a grunt of acknowledgement. 'I'm sorry I couldn't visit.'

'Better you didn't, I was busy being crazy.'

He stepped around and eased himself onto the couch. 'So was I...' he laughed lightly.

'Couldn't cope without me huh?' House turned his head slightly to regard Wilson's profile. His friend's mouth opened and then shut again as he cast his eyes towards the ceiling with a slight shake of his head. With a shrugging gesture Wilson confessed 'I missed you,' and his hands fell again to his lap.

He waited for the derisive mocking or the sharp one liner but nothing came.

After a beat Wilson looked up to meet House's steady open gaze.

'No comeback?' he asked.

'No,' House said simply.

Wilson and found the words were coming easier now. 'Well I did miss you. I think I... surprised myself with how much.'

He checked House's reaction, just the steady gaze, unflickering and unreadable. He decided to go on, opportunities like this didn't come often.

' I thought you would call today and when you didn't... well... I was worried too much had happened, House, that too much would change, that you'd changed... that we....' he hesitated before drawing strength from House's strangely encouraging silence. ' I didn't know what to do for the best, if I should come find you, if you would want me to come find you...I didn't know what you would need?'

House's lips twitched into a smile, fleeting and then softening at the edges, reaching his eyes, holding the look until Wilson glanced down to find a warm hand covering his own.

'Always with the pathological caring, Wilson. Well let's see,' House drew a breath and listed, 'Cuddy held my job, my license is pending, my shrink is happy with me and I'm not seeing dead people anymore...'

'Always a bonus,' Wilson conceded, his voice falsely light, his eyes on the hand over his. Still there. It gave a squeeze and he felt a rush of warmth travel the length of his arm to his heart. The jittery feeling which had sat with him since morning racked down a notch or two. Wilson sagged a little in his seat.

House's voice was gentle under his humour, the volume lower than before. 'Wilson, I'm back on your couch, drinking your warm and slightly flat beer, I _know_ you tivo'd the _L Word_ while I was 'inside' so...' his eyes flashed with amusement and a kind of honest ease Wilson barely recognised in his friend. He wanted to reach out there and then and check this was really House. But he didn't need to because the weight of his hand held Wilson steady, connected him, reassured him in a solid physical way even as Wilson sought words.

'So things are ok?' the urgency escaped into his question and he caught House's eye again with a hint of embarrassment. God he was pathetic, the bright shine of his own neediness betraying him.

House looked at him curiously, patiently, mind ticking, reading him.

'Not yet. I spent the best part of the day trying to figure this out,' Wilson's concern knit his brows briefly. House laughed softly before looking back at his friend.

'Relax. I've got it figured, as always,' Wilson's frown faded slightly before he continued. 'As of now I officially have everything I need.'

House released his hand with a long stroke of his thumb across the palm, never moving his gaze from Wilson's, never letting go of his eyes.

The warmth in Wilson's heart moved to his smile.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title: Needed – Part 2**

**Author: lornesgoldenhair**

**Genre: House MD**

**Pairing: House/Wilson friendship and later Slash**

**Timescale: Early Season 6**

**Rating: T to be safe. M in later parts.**

**Date of Creation: September 2009**

**Summary: House has returned from the Mayfield and Wilson struggles with his feelings**

**Spoilers: Through to Season 6.**

**Distribution: Fanfiction. net, otherwise just ask.**

**Disclaimer: Not mine. David Shore owns everything.**

He was dimly aware of the movement around him. A quiet step to his right. The soft rustle of papers. The jangle of keys quickly muted and a small hitch in breath as Wilson grimaced and stilled them in his palm. He felt his friend move over and above him, ghost like in the grey half light of morning, but in his dream House couldn't muster the energy to open his eyes and look. He felt the pre analgesia ache in his thigh and shifted to ease the muscles, allowing sleep to blanket the pain and lull him back down again.

Lulled.

Sleep coming easily today. The cushions of the couch moulded around him, held him closely, tethered him comfortably to the present. He turned his head and flipped the pillow to find the cool material on the reverse, brushing his jaw against the linen, settling back into unconsciousness. His stubble scratched into the cloth and a whiff of detergent and fabric conditioner wafted into his senses, a household scent mingled with the familiarity of Wilson's cologne and something else beneath.

Wilson's pillow. Wilson's couch. Not in the Mayfield.

He felt the ghost move over him a last time and heard the door click shut.

Home.

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'What time did he get there?' Cuddy pierced him with anxious blue eyes. She had spotted Wilson as he had emerged from his office, a bundle of files under one arm, late for a clinic. Bearing down on him from the far end of the hallway she had click-clacked her way on her heels until she stood inches from his face peering up, face full of questions.

Or one question in particular. House. He sighed.

'Small hours, maybe one A.M.?' Wilson's voice was resigned to the interrogation, uncomfortable and strangely evasive. He didn't want to share these details; he wanted to carry them with him in his preoccupied mind and try to come to terms with them somehow. He felt prickly and irritable under her scrutiny and couldn't rationalise why.

Cuddy exhaled, 'Oh thank God.'

Wilson stared at her performance of relief. 'Wait... you were... you told me not to worry!'

'That's because I knew you _would _worry. I couldn't deal with both of you.'

Wilson's eyebrows twitched. 'Why thank you for your concern, I was going out of my mind last night and you... Oh ... just... never mind,' he let his voice fall back to its usual calm register. 'He's home now.'

He rubbed his neck with his free hand. He must just be tired. Worry, waiting, House's late night arrival and the surge of emotion that had involved. Wilson had barely slept and the adrenaline was taking its toll now. Three espressos into his morning and fatigue hung from him like dull weights on every limb.

'And?' Cuddy's voice cut through to him again and Wilson's responding glance was a little too rapid.

'And he's fine,' he said surprised by his own curtness. She made a frustrated little movement, a jig on the spot.

'Fine isn't an answer. Did he talk about the Mayfield? What did they do there? How is he? Is he... is he different?' she drew her lips together and waited for an answer like a school mistress expecting an explanation.

'He's been back a few hours, that's all, he was tired and he needed rest. We said hi, I made a bed for him on the couch and he slept.'

'He didn't commandeer your bed? Pull the cripple line?' Cuddy's eyes were wide.

An irritated sigh, 'No, he just... look he was tired OK?'

_I'll sleep here....You should take the bed your leg will be like hell in the morning._

_I'm fine, Mayfield beds are nothing short of torture devices, your couch is like a five star retreat in Hawaii compared to one of those._

_Even so..._

_No, Wilson_. And something desperate glinted in his eyes as he said it, fading almost as soon as it had come, something guilty, something he folded away from Wilson's gaze, _Seriously, just grab me a pillow or something._ _I'm good here._

'Ok so he was tired but...' Cuddy raised her hands in exasperation, 'How _was_ he? He didn't say anything? Last night? This morning? '

'No, he didn't,' a lie and a truth. Few words, but House's actions spoke to Wilson and he didn't want to share. He thought of his hand covering his, the stroke of his thumb, the reality of a form of physical contact he'd never expected to come from his friend. Wilson smiled at the memory and at the person in it; the most abrasive and yet most vulnerable person he'd ever known; the person the most and least in need of a protector. He thought of how difficult these things always were for House, how much of his guard he would have needed to drop to do it and Wilson felt suddenly possessive. It had meant something, it had been _his_. House had offered him something laced with rare and precious trust and he was damned if he was going to betray that now.

Cuddy's eyes on him again trying to read through his expression. He had to give her something. But not that.

'He's different, he's off the Vicodin, his pain seems better, he's more...' he struggled for a word, 'Open,' he decided on.

Her eyes flitted back and forth over his, wrestling with hope.

'It won't last,' and Cuddy's pessimism fell around her shoulders like a raincloud as she cast her eyes to the floor. She looked genuinely defeated. 'He' s detoxed before only to lapse, why should this be any different? He's an addict...'

'I know that better than anyone, but this...

'But what? What's so different? He'll last a week, maybe a month and then he'll blow up again and he'll be one step closer to...'

Wilson bristled suddenly filled with a raw desire to protect his friend. Out of the hospital five minutes and already Cuddy warning of his failure. Letting go of hope. Hadn't House dealt with enough, couldn't she just give him a chance, now of all times? This hadn't been a detox to impress a cop, or a detox to win a bet. House had been full flight terrified, his mind unravelling, the last vestiges of the only thing he cared for threatening to desert him forever. He had checked himself in, and he'd struggled but he had stuck with it and endured despite all expectations.

_You've been conditioned to expect failure from him, _Dr Nolan's voice on the phone slow and calm_, And he's been conditioned to have you expect failure and nothing else. He doesn't believe that anyone believes anymore._

_Most people don't, _Wilson said.

_You do._

'He's fine.' Wilson cut across her diatribe, 'He's _trying._ Last night you were freaking out because he was missing and today you're condemning him. Doesn't that strike you as a little odd?'

'Wilson, this is House we're talking about. I don't want to see him hurt... I just know that's how he's probably going to end up. I worry how I'll end up, how you'll end up...' she raised her hands in desperation, 'House damages the people around him.'

'No... you're wrong. What was it you said to me when we were waiting for him to show? We need to give him time? Well let's try doing that shall we?' his voice was verging on bitter, a flush of anger made him pale.

Cuddy took a minute step back, a single dull tap of her heel as her weight shifted away from Wilson.

'I'm sorry,' she said, 'I know you're worried... _I_ 'm worried too but... '

'He's just got here,' Wilson said more levelly, 'I don't _know_ what he's been through, I won't speculate, but he seems better, he seems _different_. I want to give him this chance.'

Cuddy held herself straight and looked at him with something akin to pity.

'You give him too many chances....' she said and moved away down the corridor.

He stood for a moment and studied the floor. He was dimly aware of the movement around him, the muffled steps, the rustles of paper, and his mind drifted to the sight which had greeted him that morning. House curled on the couch, out for the count, slow steady breathing and the grey light smoothing out his features as he slept. Wilson stepping quietly around him, gathering his things for the hospital, loathe to wake him from his first proper rest. As he lifted his keys they jangled against one another and he stifled them in his palm, grimacing and checking House's response. He moved in his sleep and Wilson remembered the jolt of concern as he had watched him shift restlessly, a hand moving to his thigh in discomfort. A pang of guilty relief followed as the hand moved back to the pillow and House had settled again, flipping his pillow, letting consciousness fall away.

He had stood there perhaps a single beat too long to be comfortable, just watching, trying to fathom what it was that he felt. The emotion eluded him and moved over his subconscious like a shadow before he made the move to leave, glancing around him to locate the changes he felt sure he would find to the apartment. But nothing moved, nothing looked different save for the man on the couch; absent yesterday, here today. The clock chimed softly and traffic moved with a soft hiss on the streets outside and the room was at once warm and peaceful and _full_. And that was different. Something in Wilson had been waiting for this, something had held out hoping with the last scraps of an almost empty Pandora's box.

_Please let this work for him. Please. _


	3. Chapter 3

**Title: Needed – Part 3**

**Author: lornesgoldenhair**

**Genre: House MD**

**Pairing: House/Wilson friendship and later Slash**

**Timescale: Early Season 6**

**Rating: T to be safe. M in later parts.**

**Date of Creation: September 2009**

**Summary: House has returned from the Mayfield and Wilson struggles with his feelings**

**Spoilers: Through to Season 6.**

**Distribution: Fanfiction. net, otherwise just ask.**

**Disclaimer: Not mine. David Shore owns everything.**

The sound of engines greeted Wilson as he swung the front door shut. A roar of machines and screech of tyres and... was... was that a _siren_?

Wilson ditched his keys in the hall and ambled through to the living room where he stood behind the couch, hands deep in the pockets of his overcoat, regarding the flashing blues and reds of the animated cop car on his TV screen.

'You're home,' House called over the noise.

'Apparently. House what happened to your handheld?' he eyed the big shiny _new_ black box under his TV, 'Did you buy that today?'

'Strained my eyes peering at that thing... screen was too small,' House paused the game and silence descended on the apartment, he leaned back and peered up at Wilson instead, 'Figured if I was going to be lazing around your place all day I could at least have this to keep me entertained, besides...' he pulled a face and mimicked what Wilson could only presume was the sales boy at the games shop, 'The graphics are like totally awesome, dude.'

'What about work?' Wilson removed his coat and ditched it over the arm of the couch. He cast a glance over the empty chips packets and soda cans on the coffee table. House's blankets were rumpled in the corner of the couch and his pillows lay abandoned on the floor. One of his button downs was slung over a chair and his open knapsack spilled laundry contents over Wilson's rug. Wilson blinked stupidly and then conceded defeated on the neatness front, no point in getting wound up about it, House's sense of chaos could take on his tidiness any day.

'I'm not ready for that yet... but don't worry I'll know when I am... ' House was saying. He moved to turn the controller back on again but Wilson snatched it from his hand. House looked back up at him pitifully prompting an indulgent sigh from his friend as Wilson tried to stifle his laughter.

'So this is your plan for recovery is it?' Wilson chirped, 'Hang out with your Playstation in my apartment?'

'I'm hanging out with _you_ in your apartment,' House corrected. 'It's supposed to be good for me. Now gimme,' he snatched for the controller but Wilson was quicker.

'I've had a long day,' he said holding it out of House's reach deliberately. 'I need to unwind. Now... How do you play this thing?' He flopped by House on the couch and punched a random button; the roar of engines burst from the speaker system again.

'You steal cars and avoid cops. You get bonus points for speeding and driving without a licence.'

'Tritter would be proud of you.'

House chuckled warmly beside him. 'I don't think there's an option for possession of narcotics on it.'

'That'll be on version 2.0, give the developers some time, it's the next natural step.'

House stretched his arms out along the back of the couch and smiled to himself. Wilson could almost feel it beside him, this uncharacteristic contentment. He glanced across and confirmed it with his own eyes, House, watching the screen, half smile still on his lips, absolutely devoid of tension. It was well... weird.

And nice.

'Wilson,' House's eyes didn't leave the screen.

'Huh?'

There was a screeching noise and the 'car' crashed into a wall exploding into flames. A dozen make believe cops rushed into view and the system announced 'Game Over.'

'Oh,' Wilson said. He could feel his friend's eyes on his profile glaring mockingly.

'You suck,' House confirmed, and Wilson pursed his lips before swivelling to look at his companion his pride superficially dented and something akin to determination growing in his expression.

'Go order Chinese,' he instructed House.

House took about a second to consider, 'Fine. But you're paying.'

'Naturally.'

'_And _you're creating your own profile on that thing; I'm not having you ruin my perfect score.'

'Heaven forbid,' Wilson focused on the screen, 'Go order Chinese.'

'That's the gas you have your finger on, I think you want the brake,' House suggested even as he hauled himself from his seat and Wilson's car sped off a corner at high speed and into a barrier.

'I'm just... adjusting to the controls...' he protested as House limped past to grab the phone. Wilson's eyes followed, his line of sight at House's hips, and he frowned slightly.

'How bad's the pain?'

'Four. Now shut up and concentrate.' Not a four, more like a seven.

'You know the couch isn't the ideal place to sleep...'

'Shut up.' A tired protest with no real anger. House leafed through Wilson's take away menus looking for their usual suspect. 'We had this conversation. The couch is fine. Drop it.'

'We could alternate? You take it one night...'

'Wilson,' sterner now. Blue eyes sharp across the room.

'Can I ask why?'

A shuffle, House peering down at his sneakers. 'I know what you're trying to do. You're being Wilson, you couldn't act any other way if you tried. You have to _care_ and then you have to tell me I'm stupid and cutting off my nose despite my face....'

'Or hurting your leg despite there being a perfectly good bed available...'

'Yeah, yeah whatever. Point is this is what you _do_. And usually I'd take advantage of that but I'm not going to this time and that's an end to it.' He began punching the numbers of the restaurant into the phone.

Wilson's jaw dropped a fraction.

'I must have slept on this couch a thousand times House, it's no big deal,' he stood so that he could turn his body to House, employ an open stance, demonstrate somehow to him that it was OK. 'You'll be uncomfortable, you'll be cramping up every morning and it'll ruin your day and there just isn't any need for it. It's just a bed.'

'It's not just a bed. It's _your_ bed.'

'You're doing this to what... prove to me you don't want to take advantage of my friendship?'

'If you like.'

'I don't like. You don't need to do that. I'm done arguing about this. This is my apartment and you are my guest and I _insist_ you sleep in my bed.'

'No.'

'House!' Wilson swept his hand through his hair in frustration. House sighed and lowered the phone to that he held it level with his bad thigh. He looked up at Wilson from under his brows.

'You're not ready for that,' he told him.

Wilson's confusion distorted his features into a frown. 'Ready for what?'

'Ready for me, to... ' House looked up suddenly, struggling for the words, '... be in _there_.'

Wilson's gesture belied utter bewilderment. House looked at him exasperated. 'That's your space Wilson.'

'You're _always_ in my space. You invade my office, eat my food... I'm _used_ to you in my space.'

'It was her space too,' the reply was quiet. Steady blue eyes looked into him as realisation dawned.

'This is about... Amber?'

'Her apartment, her room, her bed... psychologically it's ok for me to be out here. For you that's ok too... but it's_ not_ ok for me to be in there,' he cocked his head in the direction of the bedroom.

'I've had friends stay here since she died.... House I've had _women_ stay here...'

'That was different.'

Wilson looked at him curiously.

_This isn't about me. He's feeling something here._

'It didn't cross my mind,' he said softly. 'That you wouldn't be able to sleep in there....' his eyebrows moved in realisation and concern. 'You're not worried about me,' he said simply, 'Or at least if you are that's not what's driving you. I've already reassured you I don't have an issue with you being in there so what else does that leave except that you don't feel reassured...'

House was avoiding his eyes.

'You feel bad,' Wilson said abruptly, 'House we've been through this; you don't need to feel guilty. I don't _blame _you. I've grieved, I've moved on. I packed her things and I said goodbye and it was awful. There isn't a day goes by where I don't think of her or what might have been but...'

'She might have been still sleeping in that bed,' House looked up sharply. 'You think I can just go in there and take her place and lie there easily, get a good night's sleep on the oh so comfy mattress you bought together? My leg would hurt _more_, not less.'

Raw. Something in House looked raw. And afraid.

Wilson allowed his gaze to soften and took a step towards House and the passageway to his room.

'Come on,' he said simply.

'Wilson...' a warning note.

'Come on...'

HWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHW

Wilson's room was of course immaculate. There was order. Clothes were on hangers. Clutter was minimal. The colour scheme matched and the furnishings were soft and welcoming. It smelt of his cologne and his body and the powder he washed his shirts with. Wilson turned in the centre of the room and eyed House who hovered by the door. He took a couple of steps forward and stopped, the weight of the place seeming to bear down on him. He was looking at the bed, made up just as neatly as the rest of the decor. Looking at the side where Wilson lay and the empty space next to it. And then his eyes were moving across the carpet, to the dresser, to the mirrors; scanning, searching, returning at last to Wilson.

'She's gone,' Wilson said. 'It's just a room now, just a bed.'

'I know that,' House snapped, but he still didn't move. He looked suddenly very young and very uncertain. Wilson sat on the bed, on the side that had been Amber's.

'It's OK to know it... intellectually... but feel something less... rational,' Wilson said, 'You're human.' A short sad laugh from House at that.

'I hallucinated her. I don't think rational has place here anymore.'

Wilson waited and then took a breath, diving in.

'I know you explored your feelings about Amber with Nolan,' he started, 'I know it's a jumble, that there's guilt and not guilt, and rational fighting irrational and that when you were sick and you saw her she represented parts of you that... well I don't claim to understand it but I know you've worked through a lot this summer about her and it's been hard. I can't imagine how hard... I'm not in your head...'

'Lucky you.'

Wilson ignored his remark. 'You have to listen to me here... don't keep hurting yourself over this...' House's eyes flitted up to meet him, he was deeply uncomfortable and deeply exposed and Wilson gave pause to study his response for a moment before he went on. 'You're here.... because you want to get better... you're here because you feel being here ... with me... will help somehow, _you_ chose that... not Nolan,' House flinched caught out by the facts, 'You don't need a babysitter House,' Wilson said, 'You know you don't. But you do need something from me.'

'This was a mistake,' House muttered, his fingers twitched by his sides as though he might make a run for it at any moment.

'You don't believe that. House you can do this, just be honest with me here.... you can talk to me about this. I don't know what you need... but you have to know that whatever it is, I'm here.'

For a second Wilson thought he might get the answer and then House cast his gaze to the ceiling and Wilson was surprised to see the pink tint to his eyes. He sniffed and bit down on his lower lip.

'I've done nothing but talk since May,' House said, voice rough. 'I'm done with talking, especially about this.' Wilson nodded about to admit defeat and return to the living room to order dinner when he remembered something. So words weren't the key, when House had come home it hadn't been words which had reassured Wilson that he was doing ok. He looked at House hovering uncomfortably by the door and then on impulse reached out his hand, closing half the distance between them, waiting for house to respond.

It took an age which was probably thirty seconds before House slipped his fingers over Wilson's and took another step into the room. Wilson's grip pulled him down to sit by him and the bed creaked with the added weight.

'Just sit here a minute and then we'll get dinner,' Wilson said. House grimaced and his free hand absently went to his thigh to knead at his flesh. With a smooth movement Wilson's fist gripped his wrist and held his hand still. The movement angled his body so that they were almost facing one another, joined by both hands. At this proximity he could see every fleck of blue in House's eyes, every ripple of uncertainty in his expression.

'It's comfortable isn't it?' Wilson smiled.

'I wouldn't put it that way,' House said.

'It's a mattress,' Wilson said lightly, 'It's a piece of furniture, something people sleep on, most people have one in their home, sometimes people have guests who sleep on them too...' he rolled his eyes.

'You're being flippant.'

The seriousness returned to Wilson's voice. 'No House... I'm not. I get it. I get this is hard, but Amber is gone. And you're here, and while you're here I need you to be happy... and... comfortable,' House's lip twitched in the ghost of a smile. There, the skin under his fingers warm and pliant. He was reaching him.

'You want me to experiment in comfort, well that's a new one.' House said sarcastically and then his expression fell again.

'Give it a try, you might like it,' he watched as House dropped his eyes to his lap where both of his hands were in Wilson's. He didn't try to pull away but nor did he move towards the contact. Head bent, his posture screaming with sadness and an edge of helpless self defence, Wilson struggled for a moment not to pull him closer, let him feel a pair of arms around him, the touch of skin. He blinked, the thoughts alien to him, rising from somewhere deep and instinctive; yearning. He wanted to touch House, hold him as he would any other human being in pain, pull him against him and feel soft hair under his fingertips, warm breath on his neck, feel his body relax against him, reassured and at peace.

A tight knot in his stomach and a warmth there too. A fear that House would erect barriers and he would be left again on the outside watching him struggle, unable to reach him. He couldn't do it, and Wilson was back to words again, too uncertain of his feelings to rely on touch anymore, too sure he would try too much too soon. Swallowing down he looked at House, and squeezed the hands he held trying to remember why he had brought him in here, what he was trying to prove. Finally in a voice so quiet he could barely hear it over his breath said simply, 'It's just a room House, just a bed in a room. It's over. There's nothing to be afraid of anymore.'

The barest hint of a nod showed him that House had heard.


	4. Chapter 4

**Title: Needed – Part 4**

**Author: lornesgoldenhair**

**Genre: House MD**

**Pairing: House/Wilson friendship and later Slash**

**Timescale: Early Season 6**

**Rating: T to be safe. M in later parts.**

**Date of Creation: September 2009**

**Summary: House returns to work and Wilson struggles with his feelings after a particularly difficult day.  
**

**Spoilers: Through to Season 6.**

**Distribution: Fanfiction. net, otherwise just ask.**

**Disclaimer: Not mine. David Shore owns everything.**

'Sophie's condition is very poor,' he spoke softly, holding and yet wishing he could avoid her mother's gaze.

'How long?' two loaded words.

'It's really very difficult to...' his rehearsed reply was cut off sharply. He ought to have realised. Sophie's mother had after all heard all of this before. He'd said all this before. Almost a year to the day.

'How long?'

'Hours to days,' the admission came and there was silence. He watched as her palms smoothed over her knees and wondered briefly if they were clammy or dry. She rocked forward, bracing herself, and he found that he couldn't read her response; her features were taut but there were no tears. She nodded to herself, willing strength into her voice.

'OK.'

He waited, quelling disbelief. OK? Nothing was OK.

'Monica...'

She looked up sharply, rocking forward again, removing one hand from her knee and letting it rest against her swollen belly. He saw her fingers twitch in response to the baby's movements there but her eyes were distant.

'I should go sit with her,' she said flatly, 'Thank you, Dr Wilson.'

The door opened before she could bring herself fully upright, the noise of it suddenly harsh in the quiet of Wilson's office. House appeared, too quick, too big for a room already filled with unspoken sadness. He opened his mouth but was immediately silenced by Wilson's untempered glare. A step back and he was holding the door, watching as Monica moved past him to the hallway, tracing familiar steps back to the children's ward; she gave no indication that he had interrupted, didn't even glance in his direction. He studied her gait, the wide step of pregnancy; the protective way she held her belly, before allowing the door to swing shut again.

'What are you doing here?' Wilson asked wearily, his left hand still annotating Sophie's charts. He felt the weight of House's stare for a moment before relinquishing and looking upwards.

'Your patients are getting younger,' house remarked, 'That one's not even born yet.'

'Patient's in the ward, leukaemia.'

House looked thoughtfully at the door.

'Mom's pregnant again? She trying to breed some bone marrow?'

Wilson glared in disgust, 'Did you want something?'

'Board meeting,' House explained, dropping into the chair in front of Wilson's desk, 'My pre-return audition. Got to go play nice with the big boys.'

'Right,' Wilson's eyes returned to the chart. He remembered now, House was due back to work. Two weeks of lounging had almost driven him to the brink of madness again. Boredom was devouring him whole and he had finally admitted to Wilson that actually, work might be a good idea.

'You coming?'

'What... oh... no I don't think so.'

House's eyes on him carefully reading. 'You're on the board.'

'I've already sent a memo, you're ready to come back, you have my vote.'

'But you're not coming?'

Wilson swept his hand across his brow, 'No... I... I have a lot on today OK? I live with you every day I know you're doing better I don't need to sit in a room for two hours debating it when I have patients to see.'

The merest flinch of surprise in his friend's eyes revealed that Wilson's words had hit a lot deeper with House than he had meant them to.

'Sorry... sorry,' he waved his apology towards House with a motion of his hands, 'That came out harder than I meant it. You've done well, you have your license...'

'Next week...' House corrected sourly. He looked away, running his gaze over Wilson's diplomas and certificates, framed and propped along his shelves.

'Next week,' Wilson conceded, 'And you have Nolan's OK, and Cuddy's and my endorsement for what it's worth. This board thing is just a formality. It's more for their collective ego than for any necessity.'

'Right... I have everyone's OK,' House said sullenly. Wilson looked up from the chart; looked at his profile, head tilted to one side as he refused to return Wilson's stare.

'You need me to be there?' it came out more world-weary than Wilson had intended. He saw the twitch of House's jaw and an intake of breath which might have indicated a reply if it hadn't been cut off by the shrill sound of Wilson's pager. He glanced down at the number, 'Damn,' he breathed.' House listen, I...'

House was standing, 'It's fine,' he said, his voice tinged with something hollow. 'Go see to your bald kiddies. It's just a formality after all, the board don't need you there...'

And he was gone.

'Damn,' Wilson said again.

HWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHW

Everything in the terminal care ward was clean and neat, pastels and soft tones, little puffs of scent from bouquets and arrangements which served to mask the sterile clinical air. The last Oncology dinner had funded a new selection of paintings, but nothing too bright or cheerful. Landscapes and distant meadows, faded flowers. The decor was tasteful, understated, comforting.

House had once quipped that Wilson should lay moss coloured linoleum and call the wing 'The Green Mile;' all that pretty wallpaper didn't fool anyone, everyone here was waiting to die.

'Shut up and put a hundred bucks in here,' Wilson had replied, shoving the collection tin towards him. To his surprise House had donated, making a show of opening his wallet and plucking out notes one by one.

'Nothing religious, I don't want to walk in there to find psalms all over the walls or cherubs stencilled onto the door frames.... and make sure you get a decent TV package installed.'

'I'm no redecorating the place so you can have somewhere to eat lunch.'

'No-one spends more than a few weeks in there except the staff, might as well make it comfortable.'

Comfortable. It looked peaceful, almost welcoming. At times there was cheer; the friendly chatter of the nursing staff and the familiar faces of loved ones as they visited in the early days. Mom was comfortable, Dr Wilson had upped her meds, her sheets were clean and the staff were pleasant, yes things were much better for Mom now, thank you. And then days slipped by and the pain got harder to manage; the place seemed colder, the pastel colours dim and Dr Wilson would be paged more often. Place lost its charm then.

'Thanks for coming, I'm running out of options,' Dr Hammond handed him the charts without looking up from her place at the nurses' station. 'She's already at top dosage; I'm scared to increase it further.'

'She's still in pain?' Wilson flipped through the pages, scanned through the dozens of 'as needed' dosages given in the last two days, noted how the prescribed amount had increased steadily.

'Yes...'

'Driver isn't blocked? I mean she's still getting the infusion?'

'I had the nurses check the site, its infusing fine; it's just not touching it. I've never seen anything like it, the more meds I give the worse the pain gets. She says it burns.'

'Neuropathic,' Wilson lifted scans from the notes and held them to the ceiling lights, 'Tumour's eating through her sacral plexus, diamorph alone won't touch this.'

'Epidural isn't enough.'

'Needs increasing,' he took a pen from his lab coat and started crossing off medications from the chart. 'I'll discuss it with anaesthetics but...'

'Increase the driver and she'll lose the power in her legs,' his junior looked alarmed.

'She's been in bed for days, I don't think it matters anymore.'

'It matters to her. It's one more thing she's lost.'

'She's in agony this is the only way to stop that.'

'She doesn't want to give up yet, she'd rather...' Dr Hammond dropped her voice, 'She'd rather suffer than admit it's over, she won't sleep, she just lies there... Dr Wilson she won't even close her eyes.' The young doctor looked frightened, it was a look he recognised.

Wilson glanced towards the side room where their patient lay. The inner curtains were drawn but the door was barely ajar. He could just make out the shallow rise in the covers which indicated her legs before the rest of her body vanished behind the wall.

'You need to talk to her,' Dr Hammond urged.

Wilson sighed, one hand reaching instinctively for the back of his neck while the other fell to his side, chart in grip, new dosages as yet unwritten.

'What do I say?' he asked.

Dr Hammond looked confused. 'I... I don't know... you've more experience with this than...'

'Yeah... I know,' he agreed tiredly, 'Just humour me, be a sounding board, tell me what you'd say.'

'I'd tell her that there's no need to suffer. I'd tell her that...' Dr Hammond struggled, 'That we can control the pain, control the symptoms, that it can be peaceful...'

Wilson looked down at her kindly.

'Yes tell her we can make it comfortable, that we can take away all the physical pain,' he smiled sadly, 'She's thirty one years old, she has three children under six and a younger sister about to become a mom to those children. We can't make this better...'

'We can ease her distress, a little midazolam, the euphoric effects of the analgesia, we can help this.'

'Exactly as the protocol dictates,' he glanced back at the door.

'The protocol works, Dr Wilson, you wrote it.'

He laughed mirthlessly. 'Yes I did, Dr Wilson's flow chart on how to die well. Means nothing here,' his voice was tinged with bitterness. 'It's different when people lived, when they're ready to fade out surrounded by loved ones, then you're right it can be peaceful. This...' he gestured towards the door, 'This can never be peaceful.'

'We have to try....' and then, 'Dr Wilson are you OK?'

He tapped the edge of the file on the desk softly, 'Yeah, fine. I'll speak to her.'

His voice sounded miles away, even to him, his stomach knotted in anxiety. Every day he did this, every day.

HWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHW

House looked up from his journal to find Wilson frozen in the hallway, keys half in his grip half dangled towards the little table next to him. He had dark circles under his eyes.

'You going to come in or just stand there like a house plant?'

Wilson started just a little and let his keys drop with a clatter. He moved towards the couch instinctively, aware of House's eyes watching him from his place in the lounge chair opposite. His long legs were propped on the coffee table, cane against the arm rest of the chair, journals on his lap, coffee cup on the floor next to him. He looked relaxed, sleeves rolled up and an open collar to his crumpled shirt. His eyes were however slightly more guarded than usual.

Wilson sat and fidgeted. He was dimly aware that he still owed House an apology for the morning, that he _should_ have been there to support his return, that it _meant _something to House, but all he could see were his patient's eyes.

'Hard day? House asked a little coldly, he removed his glasses for a better view.

'Hmm,' Wilson made a little noise of agreement.

'Bald kids die on you?'

'Not yet.'

'They scheduled for later?'

'I'm on call,' Wilson withdrew his pager from under his overcoat and tossed it onto the coffee table.

'They don't need to call you for a death, you have juniors for that.'

'I asked them to call me.'

House rolled his eyes, 'This is why you're always so pissy, you don't need to be called, tell them to do their job and get some sleep.'

'I need to be there for this one,' Wilson said quietly.

'Can't always be where you're needed,' House commented pointedly. Wilson's insides stabbed just a little. He picked at the journals on the table. 'Did the meeting go well?' he managed.

'Back to work Monday, thanks for asking.'

'Sorry I'm a little preoccupied.'

'I can see that.'

'Sorry.'

Wilson was aware of a sharp twitch of frustration in House's profile but he didn't reply immediately. He felt cloudy with thought, the conversation he had with his young dying patient still weighed heavy on him. The one he would probably have with Sophie's mother in the small hours of the morning loomed over him. He was drowning in words and death. He sat looking at his hands, head bowed.

'Go to bed,' House said stiffly.

'It's your turn.'

'I'm reading, you need sleep, go to bed.' There was concern beneath his irritated, but barely.

'I'm fine here,' Wilson leaned back, still in his coat, eyes somewhere in the fireplace.

'I'm going to be reading here, probably all night,' House goaded, 'Go to bed.'

'I don't think I'll be sleeping much.'

House lowered his journal with a crackle and a sigh which was just a little too forceful. Wilson glanced up at him at last.

'You want to talk about...' House waved a hand, 'Whatever this is?'

'It's just a bad day, it happens, I'm an oncologist.'

'Exactly, you should be used to it; instead you're sitting there like someone killed your puppy.'

'Sometimes it just mounts up a little,' Wilson shrugged. He felt the creeping misery at the nape of his neck and the pressure of it bore down into his heart. He wanted to bury his head somewhere and lose this feeling.

'So... talk.' House's discomfort was evident in his tone.

'You hate talking.'

'I hate you looking like that more.'

That was as close to a confession of 'I care' as House would get. As the days had passed since his arrival at the apartment he had grown outwardly stronger and less accessible. He finally slept uncomplaining in Amber's bed and his vulnerability became less, better hidden. He didn't speak of the night Wilson held his hands and told him the past was over or the way his barriers had dropped to expose something raw inside him. He didn't tell Wilson how grateful he was and he didn't speak of how scared he'd been the first night he had lain alone in her room, glancing at corners, praying her face wouldn't swim into view. He didn't speak of just how damned hard it was. But Wilson detected it anyway, accommodated it, encouraged recovery with a smile or a touch or some subtle acknowledgement of feeling. Today he had let House down. But House had changed enough to see past that, and still care.

He just didn't know _how_ to care and Wilson could feel him struggling from where he sat. Right now House was irked because he cared and didn't know what to do about it. If had more mental energy Wilson might have spoken to him about it, but he couldn't quite make it that far. He let his head fall back against the couch and closed his eyes. It was enough that he was there.

And besides, House was right, he should try and sleep, he should try and go to bed, his roommate would be up until three with whatever had grabbed his interest. Wilson's lumbar spine growled lowly from too many nights on the couch but he could not be coerced into moving quite yet. He let the room settle over him, the richer lighting kinder to his eyes than the fluorescent of the hospital corridors, than the cold light of his patients' rooms. He could hear the soft turn of pages and the quiet exhale of breath, a slow rhythm, calming somehow, like the ticking clock at the far side of the room.

Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale. Exhale. Fading.

Fading.

Faded.

Gone.

Wailing from the coffee table, piercing, painful. House absent, the room in darkness. Disorientated Wilson tugged at a blanket which had twisted around his legs and grabbed for the pager. The number flashed into the gloom around him, casting a sickly green glow across his features. He pressed the buttons, searching for the message although he already knew what it would read. Finally he saw it and he let out a slow breath, watching as the green light faded and he was left in the shadows, alone, skin sticky from interrupted sleep. On autopilot he rose and gathered his keys, making his way back to the hospital and Sophie's room.

HWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHW

It should have taken longer. It seemed too fast to qualify as something so important. From beginning to end it took a few minutes, the practicalities of death largely seen to by the nursing staff, Wilson arrived, verified and left again. It felt wrong. Sophie had played her role for months, battling, battling... and then he came here in the small hours and announced that it was all over. House was right, his juniors could have done this, but he'd been so insistent, he'd so desperately wanted it to be him. And now he felt empty. It was all too stark and real. He could have arrived in the morning to the news, and felt the sorrow, and held Monica's hand. He could have played the caring cancer doctor and shielded himself from _this_. Why had he come here?

He tried to linger in the room, tried to force meaning into what he saw. Her body lying flat and tidy under the covers, eyes closed, teddy bear in the crook of one arm, pendant around her neck, like a princess waiting to be woken, nothing but the tell tale wax of death on her skin to indicate she was gone. And the stillness, the feel of it in the air around him. Alone and yet not, the ghost of her presence making up for the stilling of her heart.

Still here. But empty.

He looked at the teddy and thought of another in his office. Her sister had given it to him just over a year before, a thank you for kind Dr Wilson. She had died a month later. And six months after that, her mother was back in his consulting room with another pale sick child.

He thought of the swell of her belly in his office that morning. Two gone, one on the way. Another little girl? Another child to be born and raised. He wondered if they would make it past five or if Monica was to be cursed. He wondered how she would survive.

The light in the room was tinged pink through the shade on the lamp by her bed. It lent colour to her cheeks. Better Monica should come in now, sit here now. Better now than when the light turned cold again in morning.

He turned to the door, meaning to open it and fetch her and bit down suddenly on his lip. He didn't have words for this moment; he just didn't know what to say. She would look to him for something to say and he'd run dry of platitudes.

He opened the door , Monica on a chair outside, as though she was frightened to move too far. He placed a hand on her shoulder.

'I'm sorry,' he said.

On his way back through the hospital he passed another room, curtains which had been closed all day now strangely open at night. He peered through the glass at the flicker of a television screen playing across a young woman's face, ravaged to age by cancer. The rest of the room was in darkness but he could barely make out the cards by her bed, scrawled in childish hand to 'Mommy.'

The nurse moved quietly beside him, she couldn't figure out why he would be here at 3am.

'Dr Wilson?'

'I was on the children's ward,' he explained absently, 'Is her pain settled?'

'Yes, she hasn't needed breakthrough tonight.'

'Good.'

'I don't know what you said to her but she was a lot calmer after you left... you have such a way with people.'

'Yeah,' sadly, quietly. He watched his patient blink slowly, her gaze never moving from the TV screen, her body motionless, legs paralysed, arms thin and heavy. Not calm, defeated.

'Can I ask... what you told her?'

Wilson watched the silent rack of a tear across her cheek as she blinked again.

'I told her to let go.'

A beat as the nurse followed his gaze.

'She still hasn't closed her eyes,' she said.

HWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHW

He didn't know why he did it, he wasn't thinking, just acting on an impulse which directed him wordlessly towards comfort. He had stood silently in the centre of the living room for what seemed like hours, images in his head, empty words he had spilled over grieving relatives. He felt cold. He felt a tremor in his limbs. He felt as though too many pictures were racing in his head, too many memories, too many losses. He raked his fingers through his hair and tugged on it lightly as though it might help ease the rising tension in his mind. It was too quiet, too empty in here. He looked around the darkness at the vestiges of day, an unwashed mug on the table, scattered journals, the blanket he had untangled himself from when he answered his page. House must have put it over him before stealing to bed. He bent and lifted it, working the wool between his fingertips, trying to sense the warmth but instead he inhaled a flutter of familiar scent and felt his heart fall heavy in his chest. His skin ached with hunger, he felt utterly alone.

Wilson's step was light as he entered the bedroom, early dawn threatening to break in dark blue stripes across the sky outside. He felt his fingers reach for his collar and his legs bent in the middle to allow him to sit on the bed. He felt sick, the nausea of exhaustion churning in the pit of his stomach, and his fingers shook as he slipped off his loafers, unlatched his belt.

'Someone die?' the rough voice behind him indicated he had woken House. Nothing unusual yet, Wilson would often wander in late on the nights House slept here to grab his sleepwear from a drawer or plug his phone into a charger.

'Yes.' His breath caught in his throat as he waited for a reaction but none came and he felt the ache wash over his limbs again, grinding at him until he felt tears threaten and burn.

_Please talk to me, I need this._

The sound of covers moving and House rotating under them, turning to face his friend's back. Wilson's fingers slowly opened the buttons on his shirt until he sat with it open, not quite able to continue, his thoughts slipping back to his patients.

_...Her lips were blue._

_...Her eyes were open._

_...Her eyes were shut._

_...Over too quickly._

_...He had told her to let go._

_...She hadn't shut her eyes._

Their faces merged until his thoughts batted back and forth between them, struggling to remember. At once the patient was a child and a mother, one losing the other, one being lost. It prompted other memories, other losses, the endless trail of patients who came, and went and returned to die. Wilson slumped forward, his hands covering his face. He let out a deep sigh, shuddering with the force of it, quickly drawing breath again lest he disintegrate on the spot.

'You do this every day,' House stated slowly from behind him, 'It's your job.'

'I know.'

'So what's different today?'

'I don't know.'

'Yes you do. '

'I left my persona somewhere I guess, forgot how to be Mr Emotionally Centred.'

House shifted behind him, snorted slightly. 'You're never emotionally centred; you just like to think you are, you're just as emotionally _un_centred as everyone else.'

Wilson slid his watch from his wrist, dropping it on the night stand.

'Kid died today,' he said by way of explanation.

'Kids die every day,' but the tone of House's voice showed interest. Wilson turned just slightly towards him, straining to make out his features in the dark.

'Kid had a sister, died of the same leukaemia last year.'

Silence. Waiting.

'Hmm,' House tilted his head slightly. The kid's death didn't interest him. Leukaemia was boring. Wilson's reaction tonight was not boring.

'Two for the price of one,' Wilson said weakly to break the painful quiet, 'You probably have a theory about their genetics... I ran the tests, there's no gene, it's entirely random. It's entirely... _cruel_...' He could feel House scrutinising him. God he just wanted to lie down, he wanted darkness to wash over him. He felt a sudden pang deep inside of him; he wanted another human being somewhere close. He didn't need House to understand, or say something clever, or come up with a theory about the patients. He just needed to lie down, with him there.

But the silence bothered him and the words kept coming in spite of himself. 'I've spent two years caring for this family, I've watched two sisters die and I... I couldn't save them.'

House's eyes glittered as dawn started to trickle through the blinds. 'You're not God.'

'They think I am, they look to me to... make it better somehow and I can't... I watch them fight these diseases and ultimately I make no difference... I just give them permission to die...'

'Wilson,' a warning note to House's voice. He needed to back off. He was being melodramatic. House hated that. It wasn't rational.

'Sorry, sorry it's the middle of the night and I wander in here and... emote... sorry.'

'Actually its morning,' House's eyes travelled to the window briefly before returning to Wilson, skittering over him uncertainly. 'You do make a difference,' he said quietly, 'It's just...' he was lost, 'You make a difference,' he finished.

'Yeah,' a small sigh. It was the closest House would come to offering actual comfort, here with his guard down in the middle of the night. Wilson was dimly aware of the warmth from his side of the bed and the ache in his spine. 'I'm sorry I missed the board meeting,' he offered.

'You had dying people to see,' House said. 'Dying people need oncologists.'

'I should have been there.'

'Yes, you should have.' There. The little stab of hurt he had seen in House that morning, finally in words.

Wilson winced a little. 'Thanks, as if I don't feel crappy enough.'

'You get off on feeling crappy when you're like this.'

'That's not fair.'

'I know...' barely whispered. 'I'm not very good at this stuff.'

Wilson pressed his lips together, swallowed hard. He started to unhook his cufflinks, feeling House shifting behind him, aware he should probably vacate to the living room again, feeling awkwardness rising. But the same thing that had caused him to enter the room in the first place now held him there, he just... needed this.

Something heavy in the air, in his breathing. Something snapping, giving way.

'Look if you're going to get in could you just get on with it,' House's voice strained now, 'Because I was planning on going back to sleep sometime soon.'

The cufflink came away heavy in his palm and he gripped it tightly. 'I... House....'

'Get in.' An order and an acknowledgement of need. House let himself fall back down to the mattress and lay still. 'While it's still dark...' he added, 'Longer you leave it, harder it'll be to... get to sleep. The couch is giving you backache, you're overtired and you're getting all girly as a result. You need rest. Now... get in.'

Wilson stood uneasily and hesitated before reaching forward for the covers. He peeled them back slowly, removing his shirt, allowing his pants to fall away, slipping into his side of the bed. He turned to the left, looking out across the floor of the room.

'Thanks.'

House made a grunt of acknowledgement. 'I'm going to mock you so hard in the morning.'

'I know. I probably deserve it.'

'You're pathetic.'

Wilson accepted the judgement and allowed himself to move slowly towards unconsciousness. He listened to the breathing behind him. Inhale, exhale, fading. He wasn't sure how much time had passed when he felt the mattress dip slightly and House turned behind him. A sudden warm breath on his neck told him he was facing him, closer than he might have expected. Wilson opened his eyes again, his gaze on the creases of pillow in front of him, shadowed in the gloom, tinted blue with dawn. He felt the tremor in his limbs start to subside and the shape behind him bled heat into his body.

'House...'

'Go to sleep.'

The words were there before the thoughts had formed. '...you can.... move closer if you want.'

He heard House breathe in and hold it, felt something shift in the air between them. He could make it a joke, diffuse the situation, but his mouth went dry. Wilson's heart tickled in his chest. What was he doing? House would never let him forget this, he'd probably move out; Wilson has a bad day at work and suddenly he's...

He felt House's chest against his back, the slow uncertain touch of his hand as it moved along his forearm, reaching, wrapping around his wrist lightly. The breath at his neck was hotter in its proximity, the barest trace of lips against his skin; hesitant, not quite a kiss, not quite platonic. Wilson tilted towards him the smallest amount and House shifted again, bringing himself flush against him.

'OK...' House's voice was antsy, hurried with thinly veiled anxiety 'Better? Good...Now go to sleep._ Please_.'

Wilson looked down at the hand on his wrist. A few more minutes and the sun would be up, colour would return to the room and the moment might be gone.

Inhale. Exhale. Fading.

House's breathing slowing as the clock ticked behind them.

Inhale. Exhale.

Wilson's mind holding onto the sound, onto the warmth at his back, around his wrist.

Inhale. Exhale.

He couldn't let it fade, not this time.


	5. Chapter 5

**Title: Needed – Part 5**

**Author: lornesgoldenhair**

**Genre: House MD**

**Pairing: House/Wilson friendship and later Slash**

**Timescale: Early Season 6**

**Rating: T to be safe. M in later parts.**

**Date of Creation: Fall 2009**

**Summary: House has returned from the Mayfield and Wilson struggles with his feelings**

**Spoilers: Through to Season 6.**

**Distribution: Fanfiction. net, otherwise just ask.**

**Disclaimer: Not mine. David Shore owns everything.**

House had his back to him, cane propped against the kitchen counter as he spooned coffee into the cafeteire. The small noises of morning tinkled across the room to where Wilson stood, rumpled from sleep, one hand trying to smooth his hair. He blinked into the warm late morning light and watched the sounds. The clink of the spoon as House stirred and let it drop to the counter, the sound of a drawer sliding and closing, the suction of the refrigerator door as he pulled it open and rummaged for milk. From the corner of his eye he spotted Wilson.

'Morning,' he said. His tone was unreadable.

'Hey,' Wilson swallowed quietly and waited. House placed the cafetiere plunger in position. He leaned over, both hands on the counter, and peered into the top of it, assessing whether or not the coffee was brewed and he could squeeze the filter down over the swirling granules.

'We don't need to talk about it,' House said suddenly. Wilson felt a jolt of anxiety.

'I thought... well...' he stuttered.

House pushed down on the plunger with slow deliberate force. Wilson watched as the coffee churned and spiralled.

'You feeling better... more yourself?' House asked, his conversational tone was laced with a warning. Just say yes, and then move on. We are not discussing this.

'I... yes... I...'

'Good,' short, simple. House straightened with the coffee in one hand.

'House, I think maybe...' Wilson hesitated unsure of exactly what he wanted to say. Yes he felt better? Yes he was fairly certain that the physical contact he had shared with House had a lot to do with that?

'Bring mugs.'

House's words were brisk and he shifted as if to push past him to the living room. But he hesitated as though he couldn't bring himself to move through Wilson's personal space and came to an abrupt and awkward halt. He hovered in the centre of the kitchen a faint trace of uncertainty in his manner.

'Mugs... Sure,' Wilson said, edging slightly to one side. House still didn't move but the uncertainty waned just a little. It was easier to be normal. Wilson had been a wreck, and in the middle of the night he had reached out for something comforting. House had surprised him by being that thing, briefly, secretly, but now it was morning. It was done, and House was signalling for Wilson to close the lid on the whole incident. They had known each other long enough, seen enough of one another's lives, to know that sometimes, wordlessly, they sacrificed small pieces of themselves for the other and then moved on silently, never commenting, never having to say thank you. An unspoken understanding that deep down they had one another's back, even when the things required of them were awkward and unprecedented.

Wilson caught House's eye and something passed between them to confirm his suspicion. The sun was up, he had watched it rise with the heat of House against his body, peaceful, warm. His neediness had brought out a deeply buried side to House, a response filled with a gentleness Wilson knew he possessed but rarely saw. It frightened House, and if he pushed, House would close down. Wilson watched as the blue eyes flickered back and forth over him, trying to read his expression, willing him not to make a big deal.

Wilson knew it. He knew that this was just how it was supposed to go. That whatever he was feeling would burgeon up to the surface only to be hit with a wall of impossibility. It had happened before now, he realised. A rush if emotion, affection, need, desire; triggered by some event, some almost loss of House, the infarction, the shooting, the insulin OD, whichever crazy risk House had taken at the time. And Wilson would feel it, a feeling like drowning in a winter lake. Lungs and heart screaming, burning with the need to _tell him_. The long ascent to the surface of the water, rushing upwards towards escape, that feeling of almost relief, almost there, almost breathing just to hit a thick layer of ice which cut him off from the light and air above. He had dreamed of it once, a stream of bubbles rushing ahead of him, the sun beyond the ice. Drowning. Waking. Heart burning in his chest.

'Wilson,' House jerked his head in instruction. _Get the mugs you idiot, we're done here._

It was painful. It was rejection after intimacy but more than that a rejection of Wilson's blatant need. Did House think he was fixed now? A few hours sleeping in his arms and that was enough? He could still feel House's arm wrapped snugly under his own, crossing his abdomen, leeching warmth into his skin. He could still sense the barest aroma of him on his T-shirt. He had been right _there_ and now... It shouldn't matter; this was just the way of things between them. House offered a peculiar support in times of crisis to be immediately followed by a divergence of their emotional paths when things were too intense. But it wasn't enough this time. Wilson didn't understand it, his feelings surprised him, but it hurt.

Aware of him. Of House watching.

Wilson sighed a little and looked past House to where the coffee mugs stood parallel to one another on the counter. He was stepping closer to lift them with one hand, noticing that House had left his cane propped to one side, when he felt the brush of House's fingertips against his flank. A small touch, almost as though his friend sought to balance himself as he limped past, the way he might have reached out instinctively to the counter or the fridge if they had been closer, but instead his fingers fitted briefly into the curve of Wilson's waist and then flitted away again. Wilson turned his head quickly to see House's retreating form lurch towards the couch and then looked down curiously to the spot on his shirt where House and made contact with him. His skin tingled and he allowed himself a hesitant smile.

_Don't push, he hasn't closed this door yet._

He picked up the mugs and followed, making sure to brush past House's legs as he joined him on the couch. He was close but not so close as to crowd him; they didn't touch once seated. Wilson made a show of adjusting the cushions and setting down the mugs, fussing unnecessarily in a half hearted attempt to quell his own anxieties. House glanced up, wary, scrutinising Wilson's eyes for a moment before nodding and turning to pour the coffee.

Wilson watched in surprise as House ladled sugar into one mug and handed it to him, coffee just how he liked it, without asking.

'I'm amazed you still have teeth,' House grouched comfortably, 'Never mind a waist line... speaking of which... _Biggest Loser_ marathon, you up for it?' he asked nonchalantly.

'You feel the need to mock the unfortunate this early in the day? Wait... no... don't answer that.' He raised his hands. 'Should I make breakfast?'

Wilson was rewarded with a rare smile and he felt his nerves settle at the sight of it.

'Plenty of butter,' House replied blowing on his coffee, 'I want fattening while I watch these guys eat muesli.'

He settled back into the couch and the TV burst into life. Four morbidly obese women in tight red T-shirts started pounding a treadmill.

'Woah!'

'Oh-ho!' Wilson exclaimed almost simultaneously with his friend. 'This should be illegal at this time of the day,' he went on shielding his eyes dramatically from the sight, privately pleased to break the tension in the air with something of their normal dialogue. 'Oh God... Ok I'm going to cook, I can't watch this!' House chuckled beside him and for a second Wilson could feel his eyes on him, his gaze soft for the briefest of moments before his eyes returned to the television and his sarcasm rang out against the walls of the apartment with delicious accuracy.

Wilson ambled back to the kitchen, foraged in the refrigerator, slowed his breathing to something representing calm. So House didn't want to speak about it, so his mind was as confused as Wilson's, probably just as aware as his own of the implications of last night. But he was here; he was _with _him.

The spot at Wilson's side felt warm whenever he remembered the touch.

HWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHW

Wilson started to doubt himself as the days passed. House returned to work and quickly became embroiled with his case; Wilson, on call for Oncology vanished into the depths of the wards and nursed death into the small hours. They crossed paths for the occasional breakfast, nodded at one another as they came and went in the apartment, and exchanged hospital gossip, but House never repeated the touch, never raised the subject of the bed or that night. He assumed his previous position on the couch except for those days where Wilson's days turned to nights and the bedroom was free. On those days Wilson found himself crawling between sheets still warm from House's body when he left for work that morning.

And then House had not one case but two and the living room became awash with case notes and journals. A spare white board was erected by the fireplace and each day the list of symptoms would grow or alter.

_Abdominal pain_

_Pyrexia_

_Visual disturbance_

_Peripheral Neuropathy_

_Rash_

_Kidney failure_

His office moved into the apartment in stages and Wilson would trudge home just before sunrise to find House asleep with a paper across his chest and his reading glasses dangling from one hand. Sometimes as Wilson slept in the day he would hear House's page go off and the dull mutter of his voice through the wall. He would half wake and listen for the tone of it and then lulled by the knowledge that his friend was nearby, Wilson would drift again.

His sleeping brain wondered why House worked from home on the days when Wilson slept in. But he didn't or couldn't ask and the distance grew between them.

House was distracted and more dedicated than ever. He was something close to possessed with this case and unreachable through Wilson's usual means of contact. There was no idle chat, just intensity of thought. If House spoke to him he would run a theory past his oncologist's eyes or bounce ideas off his sounding board. Work. Patients. Journals and papers. Phonecalls and pages in the night. The weight of responsibility deleting all chance of relaxation. Wilson had forgotten just how busy their individual lives had been before the Mayfield. It was little wonder he had been through three wives, it was little wonder House had been through none. If this was how their home lives really went it was a wonder anyone could tolerate either of them at all. At least House always admitted he was impossible to be with... he didn't expect to be tolerated he just....

Something tickling at the back of Wilson's mind. Something Nolan had said about expectation. About assumption. _You expect him to fail._ Wilson had recognised and addressed that. But perhaps he had missed something more important. Something that might help him reach out again, something which might allow his walls to come down just enough to...

_House._

He could taste the answer it was so close...

'Dr Wilson,' a voice interrupting his thoughts.

'Hmm?'

'How is she still alive?' Dr Hammond was at her usual place by the nurses' station waiting for Wilson to hand over. It was just after seven, and yet again his overnight on call had been busy, preventing him from returning home at all. House would have commandeered the bed, sprawled across it, a tangle of long limbs and a worn T-shirt. He'd be waking up around now. If Wilson left in the next few minutes he might be able to catch him before he left the apartment. He didn't know what for in particular, he still didn't have the answer, but he just wanted to see him before he vanished into his glass office and the web of his thought processes.

'Dr Wilson? She's been like this for over a week, how is she still hanging on?'

He glanced at the patient's room. He had been wondering the same thing himself as night after night he had slipped past her window to see her wide eyed and wakeful. Physically she was fading, the bones more pronounced in her chest, the hollows deeper above her clavicles, but her eyes were still open, still burning.

'I don't know,' he said, 'Is there some event, a birthday? A graduation? Something in her family she's hanging on for?'

'Nothing I know of.'

'Has she seen her children recently?'

'She didn't want them to visit, said they didn't deserve their last memory of her to be like this.'

Wilson took a few steps to the window and looked in on her.

'It doesn't make sense,' he wondered out loud, 'She won't see her children but she won't let go either...'

He counted her respirations and checked for depth and irregularity. But they were regular, steady, purely automated, no tell tale deep sighing, no Cheyne –Stokes warning of impending death. It was often the way with his younger patients he noticed. While their bodies disintegrated around them, gnawed to frailty by cancer, their hearts beat on. Strong young hearts, untouched by disease, not ready to stop.

_She's not ready._

'Her pain?' he asked automatically.

'She doesn't complain of any.'

He nodded slightly.

_That doesn't mean she doesn't feel it._

Dr Hammond by his side now, younger, unconditioned, still frightened by mortality.

'Dr Wilson we've done everything we can for her, she's comfortable, she's medicated, but this is like a living death. Just waiting like this. She doesn't talk, she doesn't cry. It's like she's in there but she's not, like she's not connected to anything anymore.'

'Sometimes that's the only way to deal with pain, disconnect...' Wilson said and looked at his watch again. 'You got everything you need? I have to get home,' his junior looked at him in disbelief.

'You're going, now?'

'She's dying, at whatever speed, she doesn't need me here to watch over that,' he snapped and bit down the surge of remorse that briefly, instantly, burned like acid in his throat. 'Tell her to see her children, tell her not to push them away. Tell her that they can't be protected from this, that they love her, that she _owes_ them this goodbye and that _that_ is why she can't let go because deep down she knows it. Tell her...' he held both hands in front of him as though warding off his own pain, stopped, lowered his voice until it was heavy with sadness again, 'Tell her that the memory of her dying, the memory of anything they see in that room, is better than the memory of rejection.'

Dr Hammond stood silently in front of him, her eyes betraying her concern.

'I need to go,' he finished quietly.

HWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHW

The journals were piled high and disorganised and the whiteboard had collected another two symptoms since Wilson had last checked. He studied the handwriting; more of a scrawl than the neatly scribed top symptoms. These last two had been added in a hurry at an odd hour of the night 'Deranged LFTs' and 'Respiratory Failure.' Beneath them a large question mark and a scribble beneath _that_ drawn in frustration. Wilson stood for a moment by the couch taking it all in. The empty mugs, the half eaten take away he hadn't shared with House. The place was still and messy and rather cold. He dumped his coat over the lounge chair and slumped on the couch.

A rustle from the bedroom and the low mumble of words as House spoke on his cell. A door opening as he made his way, cane-less, towards the living room. He was absorbed in conversation, stepping around Wilson to reach the whiteboard and locating the marker almost without looking.

'I wasn't expecting that...' he was saying and Wilson was instantly alert. House after all expected everything. He watched him carefully as he wrote on the board, the breadth of his body obscuring the word. His button down was creased and untucked and Wilson guessed he had slept fully dressed, grabbing a few minutes between thoughts as he researched and diagnosed.

'Have Cuddy fend off the papers it's not like she has to be busy dealing with patients or you know... doing any actual medicine..... yes, I know... yes...' there was something weary in his tone beyond fatigue. 'Get their consent... I'll do it myself once I've had some sleep.'

The cell flipped shut and Wilson watched as House gripped the top of the whiteboard with his free hand, leaning into it, looking down at the symptoms. He let out a long breath.

'You finished your on call?' House asked the room behind him.

'Yeah I'm done.'

'Busy?'

'Kind of, busier than usual,' he frowned at the polite conversation, this bizarre passing back and forth of trivialities. He saw the tension in his friend's back as his hand spasmed again and again against the top of the board. 'House... are you Ok?'

'You get any sleep?' House responded. His voice was utterly flat.

'No... I ... I was going to catch up today. House what is it?'

House finally let go of the board, his shoulders slumping a little. He turned slowly, one hand swiping at his forehead. As he turned the final symptom came into view and Wilson read 'Death.'

'Long day... long week,' House said, 'No answer at the end of it.'

'I'm sorry. Both patients?'

A stiff nod.

'Post mortems will be later once Foreman beats the consent out of the relatives. It's a formality, they have to consent, we don't know what's going on here. Cuddy's got the media breathing down her cleavage but she'll deal with that. I have to deal with _this_. This thing is infectious, but nothing fit.' This time his hands swept through his hair before bunching into fists at each temple. He let out a strangled noise as though his head was in a vice.

Wilson was standing before he realised, reaching for the crook of House's elbow, pulling his arm down, his hand slipping around his wrist. House watched with guarded eyes as Wilson's thumb strokes small circles against his skin.

'You ok?' Wilson asked.

House looked as though he was considering the question; considering whether or not a lie would work, what the benefit of it might be. Considering whether or not Wilson would believe him either way, considering vulnerability as an option. There was a beat as House looked up at Wilson from under his brows.

'No,' he said.

No anger in his voice, no resentment, no warning to stop. Just a simple statement of fact. He was not OK. He wasn't crazy, he wasn't scraping the bottom bad, but he was not OK.

And he'd just admitted it to Wilson. He'd just...

_Soaring to the surface, the sun bright beyond the ice. A stream of bubbles rushing above him, lungs burning, heart burning, almost there. Almost breathing. He'd drown if he didn't get there._

He had to do this.

Wilson caught House's eye and gave a small nod of acknowledgement.

'Ok,' he said gently.

House hesitated, suspicious.

'Ok?' he queried.

'Yes.'

'That's it?'

'Yes.'

As his own body tensed he felt House sag a little and let his hand run up his forearm, using its weight to turn him imperceptively towards him until suddenly House was there in his arms, solid and whole, his face against Wilson's neck, his breath in hot waves across his skin. House let out a small moan, his arms moving finally of their own accord to encircle Wilson, his fingers splaying across his shoulder blades.

'You need rest,' Wilson said quietly, his words reminiscent of the way House had spoken to him the week before. Heavy with care, mottled by fear of what he was asking. He chewed once on his bottom lip and then said, 'You need to go to bed. We both need... rest.'

A sharp chuckle at his ear. 'My turn to be pathetic,' House said. Wilson drew one hand up House's spine and felt him move a fraction closer to him. He almost didn't want to say it, feared it would end this long sought after contact.

'S'not pathetic, it's human. This is _normal_. You have a bad day, you look for comfort. Remember you said you'd experiment with being comfortable,' he tried to keep the tone light.

The chuckle became sad, the arms a little bit tighter. And then he felt it, the slightest brush of House's lips against his pulse point, the scratch of stubble along the edge of his jaw, the point of his nose nudging against the sensitive lobe of his ear. Wilson gasped softly, adrenaline and longing and fear at the sudden turn of events pumping through his muscles. He tried to quell it, afraid of driving House away, felt his heart speed up against his chest. He couldn't let this go. A week or more he had drifted wondering if he'd ever feel this way again, wondering if he had imagined the intimacy House had offered that night.

He hadn't. It was right there. It was right _here_.

Impulsively Wilson's arms reached to bring House closer. He felt the breath House took filling his lungs before rushing out across his neck, ruffling Wilson's hairline, making his skin tingle.

It was right here.

'House...' A tinge of softness mixed with moisture. House's lips full on his skin now.

_Oh God._

Uncertainty slewed into his guts. Uncertainty and heat. He felt his body start to burn, his heart hammering now, pushing him on; those last few inches before he broke through.

_What's happening?_

Wilson drew back, struggling to focus but House looked away to one side, the barest blush across his cheeks, discomfort in every feature. He looked wary, lost, utterly out of his depth, driven by something he barely recognised. He exhaled shortly and tried to extract himself from Wilson's grip but he was thwarted by the younger man's arms, tightening, holding him secure. Wilson couldn't let go. He had to _see_ this.

_Drowning. Waking. Heart burning. The light on the other side if he just made it through this time._

Finally House raised his eyes, grey blue in the early morning light, bright flecks like sun on water; bright irises around dark pupils. Something moving in them, falling.

'I'm sorry,' House said, 'I don't know why I... I just...'

'It's Ok,' Wilson said quietly but in truth he was barely listening, the words meant nothing, what he saw under them was everything. He was watching House, and all he could see were those eyes.

It took Wilson's breath away for a moment. Watching the ice crack.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author: lornesgoldenhair**

**Genre: House MD**

**Pairing: House/Wilson friendship and later Slash**

**Timescale: Early Season 6**

**Rating: T to be safe. M in later parts.**

**Date of Creation: Fall 2009**

**Summary: House has returned from the Mayfield and Wilson struggles with his feelings**

**Spoilers: Through to Season 6. Warnings for Autopsy scene.  
**

**Distribution: Fanfiction. net, otherwise just ask.**

**Disclaimer: Not mine. David Shore owns everything.**

His hands wrapped tightly around House's upper arms, holding him still, holding him until Wilson could recognise what he saw in front of him, deep in House's eyes, until the instant formed and connected them in that split second understanding of change. He held him until Wilson could breathe again. Until he could accept. Acceptance of this was it; this was here, happening, _now_. And there were a dozen emotions; relief, fear, guilt, shame, confusion, anxiety, tension, loss, loneliness... loss, fear, fear, loss, _please_.

The moment dragged out and the moment flew by, a beat lasted a minute, less than a second, and suddenly Wilson felt everything crumble, everything fall into place with a finality and inevitability which rushed over the quiet room they stood in and broke like the first peel of thunder in a storm.

He leaned forward and watched as the light danced in blue eyes; watched as the lights winked out and eyes closed, breath fluttered across flesh. Felt the falling. Caught him.

And God... that fragile trembling feeling, that delicate test of waters, the fear and the excitement in equal measure as skin touched skin.

It was happening.

God it was happening.

His lips against his lips.

His arms pulling closer.

His scent and his touch and his warmth and his taste and...

'No!'

And House backing away, untangling himself from Wilson's arms, his face averted, confusion racing across his features, one arm held out, defensive, pleading, keeping at bay.

'House, it's Ok,' he'd started this, he'd felt it. Wilson had felt it, House's lips against his neck, that need, that look, he'd wanted this. Hadn't he? 'House, I know this is strange but...' he stepped forward meaning to calm the situation, meaning to reach out and touch again. Because touch had soothed him before now, touch had reconnected them somehow when House had come home. Touch seemed to circumnavigate the need for awkward words. Touch would work here.

It would work here again if he could just...

'No,' again. House's hand dropping, his torso tilting, rotating to one side; his body language morphing into something distrustful and caged.

Wilson looked back into his eyes and saw the doors slam shut. One glance and a coldness sliding over his friend's face.

_Like ice._

'No,' House said a little more quietly. He took a few steps back; he reached for his cane, throwing hesitant looks at Wilson as he moved away as though afraid of what he might do. Hesitant and made it to the dining table where his jacket lay discarded across the back of one chair, never fully turning his back, holding Wilson's eye and willing him not to argue, not to stop him, edging around the table, lifting the leather coat and sliding into it before Wilson could say another word. At the sight of House suddenly dressed for the outside, suddenly going, the spell cracked and Wilson's voice hitched up an octave.

'Wait, please,' he hadn't meant to sound so fragile.

House cast a steel glance across the room, unhearing, and Wilson felt the panic rack up a notch more. This whole thing was moving too fast, it didn't feel real. He didn't understand what was happening, what had _just _happened, but he sensed that as suddenly as it had occurred now it was ending. The weight of that bore down him with an empty, hollow tearing at his heart and he stood watching, lost, as House zipped up his coat and reached for his keys. He couldn't think, he couldn't stop him.

_He's leaving._

'Sleep off your night shift,' House was saying, his voice distant and empty of feeling, 'I'm going to head back, chase up those autopsies after all. I can't think straight until... I need to know.'

Wilson's head nodded without him initiating the movement. He cursed himself.

_Don't agree with him, don't acquiesce, don't... but... I don't know what to do._

Wilson wanted to hit pause. He wanted to think what to say next, what to do, how to bring this moment back down to ground level, frame it in reality again and stop the rush of tiny actions which were leading to dreamlike ineffectiveness. He felt trapped and hopeless, a thousand things he wanted to say and none of them surfacing long enough for him to grasp and impart. He took a tentative step towards where House stood, caught his eyes for a moment.

Caught his eyes and they looked through him, the sparkle gone, gaze disconnecting.

_He's not even gone and I can feel him leaving._

The burning in his chest spread to his throat, his eyes.

_Drowning._

House brushed past him on his way to the door.

And Wilson couldn't breathe.

HWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHW

For doctors of the PPTH the mortuary had two purposes. Identification and investigation. Wilson's juniors took care of the first, and as an oncologist he rarely had to take care of the second. Cancer patients died, of cancer. Post mortems were rare.

The first challenge was remembering the way. Sleep deprived and trembling with unspent emotion Wilson meandered past the bright inhabited hallways of the hospital towards the general direction he felt sure led to the post mortem suite. He was led by latent memory and the gradual dimming of light as the number of windows reduced and the strip lights increased. Deeper into the hospital, further from life and noise. The corridors became narrower, more cluttered with trolleys or obstacles. Large deep clinical waste bins, discarded wheelchairs and equipment. Cramped, darker, uninhabited.

He hadn't been able to stay at home. He hadn't been able to sleep, hadn't tried. Instead he had paced and then fidgeted, sat briefly and stood again, watched minutes and then hours pass, watched the clock. He tried to untangle his thoughts and failed; tried to think of someone, anyone he could talk to, and failed again. Who did he seek out when things were complex? Three wives, gone. Countless girlfriends, gone. Had he ever really connected with any of them?

He thought of Amber.

One maybe. Gone. No-one left.

It had only ever been House. Fifteen, almost twenty years. The one consistent, infuriating, unshakable thing in his life. The one relationship which ebbed and flowed, entertained, made him laugh, fought with him, hurt him; dug its claws into his back and hung on for dear life. He had tried to walk away...

....And he had failed there too. Dragged back.

Need. It never went away, it never changed. So he sat and he paced and the room got smaller around him, the world outside bigger and more empty. Wilson stood in the apartment, alone, just him and his need.

Sometimes Wilson wondered if anyone ever felt as lonely as he did. Today his thoughts turned to the way House had looked at him that morning and he knew someone did.

House had looked at him and his barriers came down. Wilson had looked back and seen the person with whom he had shared the majority of his adult life, reaching for him,_ finally_, and something had clicked. And at first he had panicked, at first he had tried to rationalise, understand, and then he realised that would never be his role. House believed in rational. Wilson _felt, _and House looked to him to feel, looked to him to explain and translate emotion, to give him understanding in his post Mayfield world where feeling was no longer numbed by Vicodin, where losing patients hurt, where guilt existed, and where pain wasn't physical but deeper, harder_. _He needed Wilson to make sense of the world, to smooth its edges and force him to connect, and Wilson needed to be needed that way. In that moment they were symbiotic, it fell into place and they had come together easily, unthinking.

_But what now?_

Wilson took a left and the passage wound around secreted laboratories and workrooms, empty storage, the records rooms buried in the basement. Shelves upon shelves of notes and files, shelves of life stories and histories, shelves of people present and past. Living and dead. Files stacked on top of each other, just paper representing life. Past door after door, sealed with just a small window looking into those lives. Past another and another, the walls seeming closer, the strip lights further apart. Turning now and the overhead signs were gone. Directionless, forced to find his own way.

He paused and tried to get his bearings. Hospitals always hid the mortuaries. There were never signs on the doors. It was a safety measure to prevent the public from wandering in out of curiosity, to prevent them from seeing what lay beyond. There would be a sign in the lobby, one on the first hallway to the left, maybe a third to point in the general direction, which turning to take. And then they would stop. And door after door would be blank. You simply had to guess, or follow your instincts somehow.

Wilson kept heading forward, the doors fewer now to left and right. Another corridor bisecting his; cutting into his path and forming a crossroads. He stood at the centre suddenly still. The nervous energy which had plagued him all morning was seeping from him now. Arms akimbo, fingertips on hips, he allowed his gaze to drop to the floor, slowed his breathing.

_What do I say?_

He chewed at his lip and immediately remembered the taste of House's mouth on his. Closing his eyes he brought back the memory of it, tried to inhale the scent.

_I want this._

_Why do I want this so much?_

A bang and a door slamming in the distance. A soft breeze lifting the hem of his lab coat slightly. Wilson opened his eyes again, looked in the direction of the draught. At the end of the corridor was an emergency exit, before that would be the mortuary as he recalled it. They always hid them by the doors, so they could remove the bodies discreetly, so no-one had to see the bare truth of failed medicine. He took another step forward and then another before the weight of what he was about to halted him. He felt it tighten in his chest and a darkness move over him. He could barely take another step, could barely move for the pain.

_If I lose him...._

Wilson swallowed and moved forward again, towards the breeze.

HWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHW

Like every other door there was a small window in it, but beyond that a screen blocked two thirds Wilson's view. He could hear the soft uneven thump of footsteps beyond the partition and the clank of metal on metal, instruments in kidney dishes and the sharp ring and clatter as they dropped into bowls. He waited and after a few moments House stepped into view, oblivious to Wilson's surveillance, his body wrapped in pale sea-green gown, surgical mask over his face, theatre cap over his hair. His hands were gloved, double gloved, Wilson observed as he caught sight of the dual cuffs reaching up over House's gowned wrists.

House paused over a specimen table and wiped his gloves on paper towels, smearing dark and sickly stains across them before reaching for his dictaphone, muttering a description, an idea, clicking it off again. He swiped his sleeve across his forehead and stared blankly ahead. Wilson had moved close enough to the glass to fog it with his breath, and for a second House's shape became blurred before the mist cleared again. Against the glass, Wilson's forehead rested cold and separate from the man in front of him, the reflection of his own eyes catching his attention, layered over House's body.

House looked pale under the bright light of the dissection room, made paler by the uniform colour of his gown and the harsher colours of the stains across his gloves. The lines around his eyes looked deeper, tracking down under the mask, dark shadows lying in grooves where his smile should have been. For a few moments longer he stared ahead, eyes blue and bright in the odd lighting, before rousing himself and turning to vanish again behind the screen.

It was enough to rouse Wilson from his indecision and he placed his hand on the door and pushed.

With the shelter of the door gone the room was harsher than it had seemed from outside. The noises sharper, the scent heavy in the air, and the brilliance of the overheads painful on the eye. He stepped around the partition, a casual hello trying to form on his lips, a semblance of normality, of their usual work conversation, something to break the tension again. He almost managed it too if it hadn't been for...

'Oh _God_...'

House turned at the sound of his voice and glared down at him from the far dissection table.

'It's called a post mortem, Wilson, you've done a few I assume unless those pretty certificates you insist on displaying everywhere are fake?' his tone indicated a warning that he did not want a reply, or a conversation.

'House.... God... what are you _doing_?' He couldn't remove his gaze from the table, aware of the muscles straining as he stared hard, wide eyed, horrified. He felt the sweat break out on his forehead and burn down his spine, a slight wave of nausea churning in his stomach.

'Nothing the pathologist wouldn't do too,' House turned to reach for a bright metal tray.

'Pathologists have a system.... they're methodical and...'

'I had to cut to the chase,' Wilson glanced away as House lifted a scalpel. 'Can't wait around all day on this.'

'Have the family at least consented?' He tried to look anywhere but at the body, at the wall, the floor, anywhere. The nausea surged and abated again, pushing thoughts of that morning a little further down inside him. Right now there was just this scene, this mess in front of him.

'Foreman's on it.'

'You mean they haven't yet?' Oh god he was doing this without permission, this brutal illegal looking autopsy, he didn't even have permission.

'_Yet._'

'House!'

'Three more cases,' House replaced the scalpel with a little too much force and the shrill clang of it hitting the metal tray stopped Wilson in his tracks. 'I doubt _they _consented to get sick,' House concluded levelly. He watched House take an unsteady breath and bit down on his own lips nervously.

'I guess I'm not so used to this anymore,' Wilson said weakly.

'Guess not, you're hardly at the cutting edge.'

'What?'

'Big comfy office, regular clientele, none of whom you can actually do much for other than string out their miserable existences a little while longer so Billy can do his school play for Mommy. The other half are destined to die before you have to get your hands dirty, and _all_ of them have something recognisable and standard and _boring_. You just have to sit there and look sympathetic and pretend to _care_ and then fuck your ever grateful nursing staff or your pretty secretary or, oh yeah that one time your _patient_!'

Wilson reeled.

'House!'

'You never have to deal with _this_, you never have to deal with the uncertainty of it, the simple I Don't Know. You always have the answers right there in your neatly laid out Oncology Text, it's never out of the ordinary, or out of the box and if it is you get to call me and pass the buck. Well what happens if _I_ don't know Wilson? What happens then?'House shot a look of desperation at him. 'This!' he answered himself gesturing at the body, 'This is what happens. People start dying and I can't stop it.'

Wilson knit his brows, forced himself not to look at the corpse, forced himself to deal with his physical reaction caused by its proximity. He moved to speak but nothing came.

'What are you doing here?' House cut in sharply, his tone was curt and dry again, outburst over, his focus on the task at hand. He did not want to talk about feelings; he wanted to fix this problem, this disease so he wouldn't have to feel at all. Beneath him the skin if the patient tugged, crinkled and strained as his hands moved inside the long deep incision in his belly. As the strain abated on one section the skin sluggishly tried to return to normal but its elasticity was hampered by death. It remained oddly wrinkled on an otherwise smooth and barely middle aged corpse. Wilson watched it slowly writhe as the pressure relented, and swallowed convulsively. He thought back to medical school and the instructions of his mentor at the time. Focus on one small aspect, a fingernail, a tooth, a scar. Something small and containable. Forget it's a human being; see it as a series of things. He'd always struggled with that, always seen it as a person.

'I couldn't stay at home,' he started, aware his eyes were trained on the empty ring finger of the man's left hand. Above it the bruise from a drip site, above that....

_No. One small thing at a time. Focus._

'So you didn't have to come _here_,' a crack and something delicate snapped within the body. A rib? Wilson's stomach lurched and with it his eyes which jumped up to the man's face, the slack rough jaw dangling onto his chest; the chest wrenched open while House hunted for the lungs. It was surreal and hard to grasp. This body, open to the world, a cavity as it had never meant to be, skin hanging loosely over emptiness. Wilson felt a wave of grey float over his vision.

'I had to talk to you about.... about what happened today.'

A short, hard laugh, dismissing him. The kiss seemed so out of place in this room and Wilson felt suddenly foolish. He looked up to find House but his vision swam. He was aware of his back to him, the thump of organs and they fell wetly into the scales and then again into a bowl before him.

'You shouldn't be here,' House called over his shoulder.

'I had to be here,' he swallowed and tried to regain a little control. The urge to sit on the floor was starting to creep up his legs. 'Had to...'

'No I mean you shouldn't _be_ _here_,' House glanced over at him with a look of exasperation, 'Infectious,' he said pointing down with one long finger into the tray.

Wilson blinked, 'Oh.'

House looked at him curiously for a second before returning to his quarry. He raised the dark flesh to eye level with both hands and gave it an experimental squeeze. A torrent of murky liquid ran forth, quickly paling to something colourless.

'Pulmonary oedema,' House muttered. He tossed the lung back into the pan, dissatisfied, bracing himself on the work surface. Wilson kept his eyes on the floor. He was dimly aware of a second table near him, a second body; a sheet covering the details that he had no wish to see.

'For a guy who works with death every day you're a total girl when it comes to this,' House said rousing himself from the bench.

'Y..yeah...'

A snap of gloves being removed, a flurry of sheet and the first body was covered again. Wilson dared to look up.

'You look like you're going to puke,' House observed. He unhooked the mask from his face with one hand and let it dangle from his fingers. His lips seemed thinner than before as he contemplated Wilson.

Wilson swept a hand across his sticky brow and down over his neck where the hair clung wetly to his skin. 'I don't tend to deal with this side of it... I...'

'Sit by bedsides and hold hands and cry,' House finished for him, the venom taken down a notch from his previous diatribe, 'Not my style,' he went on, 'This is _way_ cooler,' his eyes fell to the sheet where the peaks of the man's profile pushed through the cotton and something in his expression relented. 'Or it would be if I knew what was wrong,' he said quietly.

Wilson hesitated, the sudden desire to reach out and hold his friend running through him again, his mind clearing just enough of cloudy faintness and nausea for him to react. He wanted to try at least to do what he had come here for.

'House, I get that this effects you, that maybe this feels new to you, maybe before, with the Vicodin, before the therapy, it really was just a puzzle to solve but... you've lost two patients, you're more vulnerable than before...'

A sharp look. 'Go home,' House moved between the two tables, his gaze flitting between the two shapes under the separate sheets.

'I really think we...'

'I mean it Wilson, get the hell out of here!' he swung towards him and Wilson took an involuntary step back.

'I'm sorry... I didn't think, I'm sorry,' the sound of his own voice was grating him but he had to say something, had to find a way of staying here and broaching this.

'Wilson!'

Wilson felt his little reserve strength cave. He was tired, and he was upset, and he didn't know what to say. This was a House he hadn't seen before, one he had spent years suspecting existed but one he never tried that hard to find, not really, not truly find. Something had always kept him back, something like fear. Something damaged lay beneath the exterior of his friend, something more that hard words and hard looks and hard humour. He wanted to touch it again, to be sure of its existence but he didn't know how and now House's tone was aggressive and jarred him into a standstill. He turned towards the door. He couldn't deal with this after all, this pushing and pulling, this unexpected tenderness followed by rejection.

'Wilson,' House's voice stopped him, gruff but kinder than before. Cautiously Wilson caught his eye again. 'I know what you're doing but... I mean it, these guys are infectious, I don't want you in here. It's not safe until we know what we're dealing with. Go home... get some rest. I can't think right until I get to the bottom of this, you know me, you know that's how I function. Just let me do this... we can... we can talk after.'

A flicker of what he had seen in House before, a flicker of that damaged thing. Enough for hope.

Wilson nodded. 'If you're sure.'

'I'm sure,' House hooked his mask back into place and drew back the second sheet. A second man lay exposed and lifeless, skin marked here and there by needles and procedures. Already House's attention was focused entirely on his patient and he didn't stir from his thoughts as Wilson slipped through the door again. He paused outside, looking past the screen at an awkward angle to catch House's movements.

In the dissection room he could see House standing between the men, his eyes mapping the second younger man's body for signs of disease. His head tilted subtly to the right and he turned to reach for the first sheet, tugging it down, uncovering his post mortem. The contrast between the two was frightening. One younger, outwardly unblemished, pale and cold but sleeping; the other a ruin, gutted and mangled, death evident on every inch of skin, in the fall of the muscles, the unnatural angles of the limbs.

House reached first for an unscarred hand, then for a scarred one, comparing the palms of the victims, studying the nail beds simultaneously, his body between them reposed in thought. That head tilt again as he replaced their hands by their sides, the rapid tick of thought in his features, that sense of not quite joining the dots, not quite making sense, edging into the lines around his eyes, across his brow. Almost there, but eluding him.

_Looking for an epiphany_.

Two bodies. Separate; joined. Different; the same. The same disease, the same destiny, the same potential cure. Two people reduced to the same level; reduced from two men to two lonely corpses in a cold morgue. Fluid filled lungs and puncture marks on their skin. White sheets and empty ring fingers.

The thing that killed them might have been the only thing they had in common apart from the thing that might have saved them, but they never found the one thing that they needed, whatever it might have been. Not before it was too late.

Wilson, behind the glass, watched and prayed that House could.

Maybe then they would both feel less alone.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author: lornesgoldenhair**

**Genre: House MD**

**Pairing: House/Wilson friendship and later Slash**

**Timescale: Early Season 6**

**Rating: T to be safe. M in later parts.**

**Date of Creation: Fall 2009**

**Summary: House has returned from the Mayfield and Wilson struggles with his feelings**

**Spoilers: Through to Season 6.**

**Distribution: Fanfiction. net, otherwise just ask.**

**Disclaimer: Not mine. David Shore owns everything.**

_Abdominal pain_

_Pyrexia_

_Visual disturbance_

_Peripheral Neuropathy_

_Rash_

_Kidney failure_

_Deranged LFTS_

_Respiratory failure_

_Death_

_?_

The same list that was on the white board at home. The same frustrated squiggle of a question mark punctuated and emphasised House's irritation with this... disease... infection... _thing _that he couldn't see_._ Wilson stood outside the fishbowl diagnostics office with his arms folded so tightly that the pocket protector crushed against his chest and his lab coat became taut across his back, material straining. He shifted his weight, rocked on his heels, restless eyes watching House's movements as his friend paced back and forth inside the glass.

_No epiphany yet._

Three more victims in intensive care. Two more days since the autopsies.

_No conversation either._

House hadn't come home. Wilson couldn't be sure if it was work or avoidance or both. Certainly the three new men brought into PPTH were enough to occupy the diagnostician. Identical symptoms, completely different histories. Different work places, different friends, different interests, different holiday destinations, different pets, different taste in clothes, different way they combed their hair... The team had turned their worlds upside down hunting for clues, examined the minutiae of their entirely separate lives and come up with precisely nothing.

But they each followed the same pattern of symptoms progressing close towards Respiratory Failure, Death and House's question mark.

So House ordered them to 'test everything' in his inimitable style and his minions had scurried to laboratories with samples and stayed there ever since. The painted agar plates and sliced tissues from the bodies; peered down microscopes and dropped chemicals onto specimens with delicate pipettes. They reviewed scans and x-rays and drew more blood and ran more tests and drove from victim's house to victim's house to collect more things to experiment on. They'd find a bacterium and start a treatment and then realise that the diagnosis didn't fit all the symptoms. House would stand by the board and draw coloured lines around symptom clusters, insisting that 'one size has to fit all with this one, kiddies,' before ordering them back to lab to retest, retest, retest.

They were testing, he could still come home, take a break. The patients were on cocktails of antibiotics which seemed to be controlling at least the most extreme of the symptoms, slowing the progress, staving off death. He _could_ come home, they'd call him if...

But House stayed. And paced. And glared at his white board and drew mind maps and flicked through textbooks and lay on his floor twirling his cane.

And he didn't speak to Wilson.

And Wilson, wary after House's response in the morgue didn't want to push. Something was fragile. Post Mayfield, post Vicodin, post kiss. He couldn't push, particularly now while House wrestled with this diagnosis, his first real foray back into the job and already two people had died. His confidence and his reputation rested on this, and at the back of his mind Wilson suspected that his sobriety and their friendship probably did too.

But it was killing him, the waiting. It was killing him to be in the apartment alone, surrounded by House's things, surrounded by the ghost of him flitting home to change, or grab a book and then leave before Wilson could stir. It was as though House timed his movements to Wilson's sleep, a circadian rhythm, coming and going wordlessly with sunrise and sundown so that Wilson would wake to the fresh scent of soap in the bathroom or the warm mist of a shower turned off minutes before, and nothing else.

House had slowed and stood again in front of his board, thinking; weary, edgy. Wilson stole glances up and down the hallway. He felt conspicuous just standing there, so obviously waiting and so obviously entirely unable to move on. He chewed at the inside of his cheeks and looked away as a colleague caught his eye questioningly.

'Dr Wilson?'

'Yes, Dr Montgomery?'

'Are you ... busy?' her face was sceptical. He didn't look very busy standing there like...

_...Like a moron._

'Just ah... I was going to...'

'Consult?' she offered him.

'Er... yes.... consult... with House. Obviously.'

Obviously. Why else would he be here.

_Right_.

He rubbed his neck and tried to will away his embarrassment while she nodded unconvinced and excused herself.

He couldn't just stand there all day. It was ridiculous. He'd run out of opportunities and excuses to cruise past House's office hopefully. He just had to grasp the bull and the horns and...

_Yeah. _House's confidence might rest on the case but suddenly Wilson's rested on House. He didn't feel like he could function without his input somehow.

There needed to be some normality. Some indication that things in the world of House and Wilson were still OK. How many times had Wilson wandered into his office while House wrestled with a problem? How many times had he drunk his coffee, given him an ear, sat in front of his desk and offered House half his lunch...?

_Offered is being a little generous. Had my lunch taken... _Wilson mentally corrected himself.

The small smile that slipped to his lips when he thought of it helped him to decide. It eased his anxiety and reminded him of something. Wilson was only person House ever chose to spend time with on a voluntary non work basis and when they were at work, he was part of the process. He was part of what made House tick. For a decade he had been his sounding board on the most difficult of cases and he didn't want that to change now.

And if they kissed again? If they fixed these patients and slid back towards one another? His mind wandered softly back to the feel of House's lips. If they kissed again... well then he didn't want it to change this either. If whatever he was feeling towards House developed and grew, if House let his barriers fall again then that would be new and exciting and important. But he didn't want to lose _this _in the meantime. If he waited outside he could wait until Doomsday. Or at least until House solved the case. If he went in, swallowed down his uncertainties and worries, acted as he always had, offered his friendship and support , then...

_The maybe he'll get his damned epiphany._

No big conversation then, Wilson had decided, and he stepped towards the office, the glass door opening and the windmilling of House's cane catching his eye as his friend turned to see who had entered the room.

House peering over his shoulder, cane twirling halted, he held it like a weapon, poised.

'Busy,' he said brusquely.

'How's it going?' Wilson asked neutrally.

'Two dead, three sick, I'm still here... apparently not very well.'

Tension.

A heavy pause during which House continued to scrutinize him. His body was still mostly facing the board, his head turned as though he might just as easily turn back to this thoughts and dismiss Wilson. It was all about the case, it was all about House's mind, about reconnecting with whatever had once made him brilliant.

Wilson stuffed his hands in the pockets of his labcoat in a bid to prevent himself from scruffing his hair nervously. He took a breath and shuffled his feet slightly, glancing up as he framed the single word question. Reconnecting on common ground, with the familiar.

'Lunch?'

House considered, tensed, turned away, glanced back at his list of symptoms. He tapped the handle of his cane against each one in turn, mentally processing them.

_Tap._

_Tap._

_Tap._

The cane, held slipping lower through his fingers as he moved to the bottom of the list...

_Tap._

_Tap._

_Tap._

...to land vertically at his side in readiness.

'You buying?' he quirked over his shoulder, the shadow of an old sparkle again in his eyes. Wilson saw something soften in House's face.

'Always,' he replied warmly.

A twitch of discomfort crossed House's features as he turned away from the board.

'Wilson, listen...' he tried.

_He's... Broaching this...? No. It's distracting him. He needs to focus. He's not ready for that yet._

'We don't have to talk about that now,' Wilson said and surprised himself by meaning it. 'When you have this solved, when we have space... not now.' He thought he could see the relief in House's silhouette, in the shape of his shoulders, relaxing just a little. Wilson smiled and turned to grab the door, hands mercifully free from his pockets as his confidence returned.

'I've been... avoiding you,' House admitted quietly, dropping his glance with his volume, forcing Wilson to turn back and look at him. He cut an odd figure, strangely distant across the open room. To anyone else he probably just looked like House after a rough night; jeans and a vintage T-shirt, rumpled button down, designer sneakers, messy stubble and nervous eyes. He looked like someone whose head was buzzing with overtired thought; he looked like... well, House on a case.

And different somehow.

Wilson tilted his vision just a fraction, switched his internal lens from colleague, to friend, to a fraction more.

_He looks lost. He looks..._

Wilson thought of the empty shower and the ghost of steam in the bathroom. Of the unwashed coffee cup and the scattered journals that littered the apartment. And of the cold grey light that had settled round his shoulders like dust as he had sat and waited for House to come home each morning and evening before sunset, after sunrise.

He thought of how much he had missed him, even in that two short days, and wondered if House had felt that way at all. Pacing his office, staring at his board, did he think about him? Did he want to come home? When he slipped into the apartment did he secretly hope to find Wilson awake? He tried to place himself in House's shoes. So he had avoided him and admitted it. Avoidance as a coping strategy, a basic hotwiring used from infancy upwards. Avoidance was simply fear.

'We'll talk about that too.... at... some point... but it's... it's OK... I get it...' Wilson replied vaguely, kindly, his eyes acknowledging House's veiled apology until House nodded shortly. There was another pause and then House drew himself up again and headed purposefully for the door that Wilson held open.

'Ruben, no pickles, I need brain food,' he was halfway towards the elevator before Wilson followed.

'Wilson come on!'

He drew the office door shut and trotted to catch House up, almost immediately slowing his pace again to match his friend's steady lurch in the direction of the canteen.

As the elevator doors closed Dr Montgomery slid back into view, and this time Wilson held her eye, nodded, smiled, leaned just a little closer to House. It was a start.

HWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHHWHWHHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHW

'Someone's lying,' House pressed the head of his cane to his lips thoughtfully. From where Wilson sat he could see the twitch of anxiety in House's jaw muscles.

'Who?' Chase. Wilson glanced at him.

'Patient, obviously, unless you guys have decided its more fun to keep stuff from me when we're trying to diagnose.'

'Which patient?' Cameron. Wilson glanced at her too.

'All of them. About...'

Wilson looked back at House. He could see him reaching down deeply, searching, struggling, coming back with nothing. No realisation.

'Something,' House concluded undramatically, sadly, his forehead dropping onto the cane and a sigh rushing out disgruntled from his lips. Foreman slumped back in his seat, irritated; Chase looked back down at his file. Suddenly House was standing.

'This is crazy! On a normal day we have _one_ patient, _one_ disease, _one_ set of symptoms. This week we've had five identical cases. Five histories, five bodies, two of which we've chopped up and stuck under the microscope, and we can't find an answer. We know they're infected, we know they have botulism, but that shouldn't have killed the first two and the others aren't getting well. What are we missing here people? I don't have time for the other results to come back. There must be _something_ in the five histories linking these guys together!' He looked round at his team, desperation in his movements.

'Well?'

'There's nothing,' Cameron said. 'They all lead totally separate, different lives.'

'No!There has to be something, five random strangers don't come down with the same weird symptoms within days of each other for no reason. They're _lying_.'

'We've asked them....'

'Well ask them again!' Anger, directed at everyone and no-one. Wilson tensed.

Cameron laid her palms out on the meeting table. 'There's _nothing_. Nothing we can find anyway.'

'Look harder.'

'We've run out of places to...'

'Tell them they'll die if they don't tell you,' Wilson said. 'Frighten them into it.'

The team stared at him. House raised his eyebrows and then lowered them slowly, catching Wilson's eye, connecting.

'Cool,' he muttered curiously.

'Wilson!' Cameron blinked at him in shock.

'What?' Wilson asked. 'It's true isn't it? It's not a lie. They probably will die unless you get to the bottom of this, wouldn't do any harm to place a little... pressure... on a few pressure _points_.'

'Excuse me? Didn't you used to be House's conscience?' Foreman asked him shrilly, 'Can't think of any other reason you'd be here. It's not _cancer _these guys have_._ Say ...' he stopped as a possibility dawned, 'Are you supervising him? Is House going crazy again?'

House's mouth twitched and something unhappy passed through his face.

'I'm... contributing, this is a tough case,' Wilson explained levelly, 'And I think we should tell these guys exactly how the others died, down to details if necessary...' His mind flicked back to the autopsy, the scent of it, the wet sound of flesh, weighed measured, dissected, the crack of a rib... 'It'd make me confess anyway.'

House shifting thoughtfully, his gaze on the floor. He looked exhausted.

'You want to scare these guys into a confession,' Cameron adopted her outrage easily, 'You don't think they're scared enough already, you don't think if they knew something they would have...'

'People keep all sorts of secrets,' Wilson said softly, 'They carry all sorts of things to their graves. Things that you and I would maybe tell someone, things they don't feel able to. For lots of different reasons. Priorities can be skewed. They might feel the need to protect loves ones, they might feel shame....'

'There's plenty of reasons for lying,' House said. 'I just need to know this _one_,' he looked up at the ceiling, formulating. 'Wilson's right. Take a patient each, a strategy each. Cameron you can guilt it out of them, Chase, charm it out of them, Foreman... you can take them out into the parking lot and beat it out of them if you have to... but we will find out. _Go_... do it... fly my pretties.'

Foreman looked back at Wilson.

'He's not crazy,' Wilson answered.

The others trooped out of the room and Wilson remained at the table watching as House ran a green marker again and again around the cluster of botulinum toxin symptoms. Several others lay outside of the line.

'Where do a bunch of unconnected guys pick up botulism in New Jersey?' he asked the board.

'Water supply.'

'Well... duh?' House chided, got that far, it being a water borne infection. Hello? Infectious disease specialitst! It's not in their water supplies... we tested.'

'Sorry.'

'Be useful or get out, by which I mean sit there and let me talk at you.'

Wilson folded his arms and made a show of doing what he was told. Outwardly at ease with his role, inwardly concerned. He watched the smooth movement of House's arm as he circled the symptoms again, then reached for a red pen and circled the remaining few, overlapping his path once, twice. Wilson listened to the squeal of the pen and the slip-shift of House's button down over his T-shirt as he stretched to draw the line and then House stepped back, weight on his left, looking at the colours, where they transected and joined.

'Why are they all guys?' he asked the room. Wilson remained quiet, intrigued by the unravelling thought process, but the quickly turning wheels of the mind in front of him, the therapeutic movement of pen on board, over and over. When House neared an epiphany there was something electric in a room, as though the chemicals and impulses in his brain somehow influenced the outside environment. It was magnetic, tense, Wilson could feel the nerves in his stomach and a soft yearning for this to come to its conclusion just so that he could see the look in House's eyes. The look he knew he was privileged to again and again in his career and friendship, a look shared most often with him. His look.

_Come on, baby._

The thought intruded without warning, the endearment slipping easily into his inner monologue. But then House was talking again and distracting him, his movements more animated.

'What do guys have in common?'

'Sports? Beer? They all use a toothbrush? There's about a million things, House.'

'No more basic than that.'

'They all eat, they all sleep...?'

Red marker on the board.

_Eat._

_Sleep._

'They all eat... we tested stomach contents, they've ingested botulism, but it's not enough to explain _all_ of this... and besides we don't know where it _came_ form... They all sleep... this isn't presenting like your average bout of sleep apnoea, and they all live in different parts of town, sleep in different beds...'

House turned to him, looking at him, seeing something different. Something beautiful. Something perfect. And there is was. The flash in blue; the look in his eyes. Silence, sudden and torn and Wilson's heart leapt just a little.

'They don't sleep in different beds,' House said to himself.

Wilson waited, almost afraid to speak, to break the momentum, push House off track with the ignorance of his words. But he longed for the conclusion and was rewarded when House looked _into _him, raising his eyes to lock with Wilson's; knowledge deep seated at his core.

'I'm betting maybe once a week they end up in someone else's bed, pay that someone... '

_Empty ring fingers._

Wilson thought of the bodies he had seen in the morgue and House was with him, seeing them too, his commentary running over both their thoughts.

'... Single scruffy older guy, young frustrated lonely guy, the first two.... they must have been there beginning of last week, maybe the weekend. The other three... dissatisfied with marriage guy, nerdy can't get laid guy... and the other one, whatever his issue is... they were later. All of them presented late to hospital. Maybe they figured they'd got it while they were there... Then we run the STD panel and they come back clean and figure they don't need to tell us about _that_. _That_ couldn't be the cause... But maybe I dunno, she offers a three star service... they get to drink her tap water when they're done, pilfer stuff from her fridge if they've worked up an appetite, inhale mould spores from her bathroom when they shower after. We searched their own houses, we don't search _hers_.'

House flipped open his cell, 'Chase, when you're done charming your patient, ask him where he meets his hooker and then go test her home.'

All the light in the room seemed to move towards him and he seemed taller and stronger than before; more recognisable, more whole. Wilson felt a rush of something pure, spreading upwards to his smile and eyes.

_He's back, he's done it._

'It's not all infection, it's environmental,' House finished on the cell, 'We should test for heavy metals, toxins, spores, chemicals... I'm thinking lead, the second symptom cluster fits... call me when you know.' End.

'House?'

House looked up from his excitement, eyes glittering, weight lifting from his shoulders and Wilson moved towards him.

'The answer's going to be there, Wilson, we get the address, we test the joint and we've got it. I thought I was losing it, I thought maybe I couldn't think without... without pills, without pain, without whatever it was that used to work for me. But I can, I _did_. Whatever it is, it's still there,' he laughed in a strange display of relieved disbelief, leaning forward on his game, rocking once on it, a smile playing around his lips.

House looked up suddenly, catching Wilson's gaze, his happiness suddenly tainted with something softer, less certain, something embarrassed, cautious. Wilson thought for a second that he might dismiss the moment, move past his triumph, bury the last traces of his self doubt and revert back to type. Cocky, sure of his brilliance, forgetting that he ever mistrusted himself, ever feared; make a joke, berate his team, reclaim his crown. But he didn't. The ghost of Mayfield passed between them and all it implied and the sparkle in his eyes was one of honesty; strong, vulnerable.

_I love him._

'I did it... It's still there,' House repeated softly, looking at Wilson, looking _to_ Wilson for something.

_I love him._

'I know,' Wilson said quietly, 'You're OK,' reaching forward again, braver than before, his hand resting on House's bicep, feeling the muscle beneath his shirt, tense with the weight he pressed onto his cane. He let it rest there, softly stroking, willing House to hold his eye, willing his own smile not to falter, for his eyes to somehow convey what it was he was now sure he felt. Wilson wished at that moment that the office would fall away around them, that their colleagues were another world away, that there was just that second, that look, that relief and hope and knowledge that somehow this time things would work. He wished that he could lean forward just a little way further, brush the hesitance from House's lips with his own, whisper how much he meant to him, how much he had missed this, how proud he was. But he couldn't push, couldn't rush, couldn't do this to House in the bare exposure of his office, all he could do was touch him in some small way and beg him to see.

House's free hand moved cautiously, warmly, to cover his friend's. His eyes never left Wilson's gaze.

_He knows._

And Wilson knew.

_Epiphany._

'We need to have a conversation,' House said.

HWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHW


	8. Chapter 8

**Author: lornesgoldenhair**

**Genre: House MD**

**Pairing: House/Wilson friendship and later Slash**

**Timescale: Early Season 6**

**Rating: M this part.**

**Date of Creation: Fall 2009**

**Summary: House has returned from the Mayfield and Wilson struggles with his feelings**

**Spoilers: Through to Season 6.**

**Distribution: Fanfiction. net, otherwise just ask.**

**Disclaimer: Not mine. David Shore owns everything.**

The sun setting in late fall tones, golden, clear, bathing the balcony in rich orange, pink and red. Above in the pink of the sky the mirage of a moon waiting to shine. Wilson leant against the parapet and watched as the evening coloured House's face, like candlelight, smoothing out the lines and shadows which had touched his features. He folded his arms and waited, suddenly in no hurry, content to watch, content to love quietly from the sideline as House finished up for the day.

The case had been solved, Cameron calling from the source of infection, describing fridge contents and pipes, a sink of week old washing up swimming in botulism and an old tank of an illegally siphoned water supply heavy with lead. He had grimaced at the image, the horror of such debris in a place where food was prepared and consumed, and then smiled to see the animation in House's face as he cracked jokes about hookers, about Wilson's cleaning habits and OCD and clichéd repulsed reaction to the discovery. They shared a glance, an intimate smile and Wilson chuckled to himself as House gave orders over the phone. A moment of relief in all the anxiety of the passing days; a genuine touch of familiarity and safety. Now he looked again at his friend and smiled to see the light in his eyes, the way it picked out the tones in his hair, the glow of his skin.

Wilson swept his gaze over House's cheekbones, the line of his jaw, the muscles of his neck. He studied the curve of his Adam's apple, the pattern of stubble, the hollow at the join of his clavicles. Hesitantly he allowed his eyes to linger there, appreciate the texture of his skin, the details of the light pattern of the hair which grew lower on his chest, and swallowed down the tingle of anticipation he felt at his throat.

House had finished the case, tied up the loose ends, even scripted a statement to the waiting media. He had been thorough and bizarrely conscientious and at least a part of that was driven by the knowledge of what was about to happen when he left the hospital. The conversation he had promised Wilson, and whatever came after... the need for that to be sacred and uninterrupted. Private. House was hard to capture, hard to interest, hard to maintain; but when he did focus, his focus was intense, unrelenting. Wilson watched as he closed the cell phone, turned to look at him across the balcony, that intensity now entirely trained on him, and it made him tremble a little inside. No going back. No more diversions. Just him, and House, and the journey home.

'Wilson!'

His eyes were blue and violet and dappled in the reflection of the fading sunset at Wilson's back.

'Let's go,' House said.

HWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWH

'You want to pick up dinner on the way back?' Wilson winced inwardly at the unnatural strain in his voice, aware of House turning to examine his profile curiously.

'We'll order in,' his reply came, 'After.'

Wilson dared to cast a glance towards the passenger seat. A pair of dark eyes met his in the gloom of the car.

'After?'

'After we talk,' House explained. He turned his face to the window and looked out across the lanes of traffic.

'Oh... Ok,' Wilson resumed position. They had slowed almost to a halt behind a line of vehicles on the long commute home. Although Wilson's apartment was relatively close to the PPTH the journey could still feel interminably long in rush hours. And interminably long this evening. He was tired and his body felt stiff and awkward. He tried to shift in his seat, pushing down with his free leg to hoist himself upward, readjust his lumbar spine against the angle of the backrest, trying to work his shoulders loose as he continued to grip the wheel.

_After we talk._

Wilson's mind flitted over the impending conversation. How much should he say? How much was he certain of? That he loved House? Yes. That House was ready to hear that? probably not. That he was ready to say it out loud? Maybe. Did he want to pursue this? Yes. Did he know how to? No. Did he want a relationship then, a fling, or a friendship with benefits? A level of intimacy above what they already fostered? Yes. How intimate?

He chewed on his lip and the car slowed to a standstill. He was dimly aware that he was tapping his fingertips against the wheel.

_You're not exactly new to relationships, how do you usually figure it out?_

'Wilson.'

He loved House. Of that he was certain, had always been certain on some level. When House hurt, which was most of the time, it hurt to look at him. When House did something reckless, Wilson felt nervous. When House succeeded, Wilson felt pride. When House went to the Mayfield, Wilson felt empty. When he came back...

'Wilson! Stop that.'

He started suddenly aware of his reverie. Of his hands tip-tapping on the wheel. Of House's rising irritation.

'Sorry.'

House rolled his eyes.

'This is driving you nuts isn't it?' House asked.

'Are we... are we _talking_ now?'

'We're _driving _now,' House corrected. There was a blast from a horn behind them and a muffled shout outside. Wilson jumped, switched pedals, coaxed the Volvo into moving again. 'This is why we're not talking now, because you can't multitask.'

'I'm just a little tired,' Wilson said.

'You're emotional.'

Wilson swallowed, 'Yes I am... and you're not?'

No reply. Just the weight of House's gaze on his cheek. He felt himself flush a little under the scrutiny. Long seconds, crawling in the middle lane, cars either side of them, spinning off onto the turnpike or sliding down into town; choosing directions, overtaking, undertaking. The creak of House's jacket as he turned back to the window, the soft thud of his cane between his knees as he lifted, dropped, lifted it in thought.

'What do you want, Wilson?' he asked suddenly.

A trickle of adrenaline spilled into Wilson's guts as he tried to answer. He wished he wasn't driving, wished he'd done as House had obviously intended and waited until they got home. He stared out into the rear window of the car in front. Counted the heads of the driver and passenger, the dog in the back leaping crazily from side to side, silenced by the distance and the glass.

'I...' he tried to find an answer, knew that if he did it had to be the right one. Something he wanted to say and something House would want to hear. But the truth was he wasn't sure of either; wasn't sure if what he wanted lined up with the needs of his friend. Wasn't even sure of anything beyond the need to feel the touch of his lips again. 'I...'

It felt like that was all he wanted. Like that _was_ everything.

House sighed beside him.

'We're not going to get very far with this conversation unless you know... you _converse_... Talking is what you do Wilson, talking and 'exploring feelings,'' he framed the words in quote marks with his tone, 'So talk, we're on limited time here, you've got until the next turn off.'

'I... don't know. What do _you_ want?'

'Don't deflect.'

'I'm not deflecting, deflecting is your thing. Are you... scared I won't want the same thing?'

'I don't know what you want so it's kinda hard to tell.'

Silence. The churn of gears and tarmac.

'I think...' Wilson began, 'I think we have to acknowledge this, I think maybe it's worth... trying...' God this was hard. So hard. Why wouldn't words come? Why couldn't he summarise this feeling into something concrete, definable?

_Because this is love, it doesn't have a definition. It just is._

'Trying...?' House queried. 'Is that the end of the sentence? 'Trying?' Trying what? What do you _want_, Wilson?'

_I want you, I want_ you_._

Wilson could feel his heart rate picking up. If they were at home now, if they were sitting on the couch and not in the damned car then he could reach out, touch his arm or his knee, look into his eyes, use his charm to soften, reassure, express this. But here, half way to home, trapped in the car with his eyes on the road he only had words and they weren't enough. Wilson needed the physical; it was just how he communicated best, with his eyes, with his body.

_House knows that. He knows this is torture. Why does he have to knock some sort of confession out of me? He saw it; I know he saw it, in the office. We both know it's there, why do _I_ have to do this?_

_Because he can't._

'I want to kiss you again,' Wilson said suddenly, 'And after that... well I don't know... I don't know where this might go, House.'

Awkward. Painful. But they were words.

They were picking up speed, moving through traffic, the rush of speed around the vehicle blurring the road to each side. He had to focus now, on the passing cars, on the streetlights, on the signs, on the steering wheel under his hands. Picking up speed, and the slightest movement of his hands now could alter their direction.

'What if it doesn't work?' House's voice quiet against the traffic, just enough for Wilson to hear.

'Then... we ... reconsider, I guess.' Wilson changed lanes and the signs overhead pointed towards home.

'What if...' beside him House looked back through the side window, fidgeted. And Wilson realised why he had brought this up in the car. Because just as much as Wilson need to see, to touch, House couldn't. It was too bare, too raw. He needed the anonymity, the privacy of the dark car and Wilson's eyes on the road, unable to judge. 'What if we lose this,' House managed, 'What if things never go back to how they were... _are _now?'

Wilson nodded to himself gently. What if... what if. What if House had never gone to the Mayfield? What if he had never risked the DBS treatment? What if Amber had never died? What if Stacey had never left him? What if his infarction had been caught in time, or never happened at all? What if Wilson had never accepted the job in Princeton? What if... things had been different?

He still would have loved him.

_And what if all of that just lead to this... what if this was somehow meant?_

Wilson could just imagine House's response to such romanticism. But what if... what if they missed this somehow. What if they didn't do this?

'Wilson?'

A small noise at the end of his name. A question mark, hesitance and a fear. Wilson was the one thing House could always rely on, the one person who even at the worst of times would always be there, would always come back. The one thing he would never admit to needing, deep down on a level with food and air.

The realisation of his friend's fear formed like crystal in Wilson's mind and was reflected in himself. House would never confess what he needed; never believe that his friend might need the same, never believe that he might be _enough._ Instead he would circle Wilson's orbit for decades with his subtle unconventional infuriating love rather than risk telling him, taking him, losing him.

'You can't lose me, House. You just...' Wilson dropped his eyes to the dashboard, to the row of lights under the wheel and almost turned to his side to look at his companion but he knew that if he did the moment would shattered so instead he looked back again at the road, took the turning to their apartment.

'You can't lose me,' he said again. 'You _won't _lose me.'

Silence. Thought. Tarmac. The shape of the apartment door.

The car slid to a halt and the engine stopped with a turn of the ignition key. Lights died, the street outside was quiet and empty, leaves and litter twirling in the breeze. Wilson sat in the darkness and listen to the tick and creak of metal, to the deep rustle of House's clothes and his soft exhalation.

'Wilson...'

It was a tone Wilson had never heard before, deep and breathless, with an overture of longing. It told him that the conversation was over.

HWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHHWHWHWHWHW

In the hallway Wilson reached for the light switch and felt House's warm dry hand close over his, stopping him, pulling him away, towards the solid height of his body.

'Leave it,' A soft whisper spilling warm breath across Wilson's cheek encouraging him to look up, House pulling him in closer, a shape made of bulky outerwear and the cool night air which clung to it. He smelt of fall leaves and soap and the barest trace of sweat, a myriad scent of his day and his essence held in suspension around him. He still gripped Wilson's hand and now reached for another, tugging until they were flush against each other. Dropping his hold House snaked his arms around Wilson's middle and then paused, searching, and finding what he sought.

No-one had ever looked at him that way before, and suddenly Wilson understood the need for darkness. That damaged love might burn in the light, too bright and harsh. In the dusk the blue shine of his eyes seemed greyer, darker; streetlight sparkles in their depths. And open, so open, a cautious window to what was left of House's soul. Wilson let his hands find their way across the broad back he held under them and closed the last of the gap between them, his forehead resting against his companion's, calm, ready.

Loved.

The stood for a moment, mirrored; steady shared breaths passing between them and then House's head tilted, his lips brushing tentatively against Wilson's mouth, and they were kissing.

It was different. The dreamlike unreality of the first time lifted, replaced with the fire which threatened to streak and burn through Wilson's body, doubts shattered. House's tongue tracing over his lips, burning, parting them; the kiss deepening with insistent grinding rhythm. His hands moved under Wilson's overcoat, pushing it from his shoulders, reaching for his jacket, parting it, working across his body, his clothes; steady, demanding. Reciprocated.

The sound of a zip and House's leather jacket came away, the soft worn material of his button down under Wilson's hands. He looped his fingertips between buttons and sprung them free, another layer of material and warmth, another layer closer. His palms swept across House's chest, catching at a nipple and the soft grunt he received in reply shot to the centre of him with painful longing. Their mouths came apart for seconds at a time, hot breath panting against skin, lips moving across a pulse point, the lobe of an ear.

And hands under his shirt, Wilson's tension racked up a notch as he felt House's fingers run up his spine. He scrabbled for his friend's T-shirt and they came apart as House took over, backed away and pulled it over his own head. Immediately Wilson reached forward again, pulling him back, startled by the heat and burn of skin on skin, abdomens flush, chests pressed to one another, the soft tickle of hair under his mouth as he kissed wetly down House's torso.

House groaned and lifted Wilson's face to kiss his lips again, pressing hard against him, the heavy heat from his groin firm against Wilson's hip, his free hand moving to snatch at a buckle, loop his fingers under the belt and tug.

'Bedroom,' Wilson managed, moving in the darkness, guiding him. When they reached the threshold he didn't search for the light, instead using memory and moonlight to locate the bed, pull House to sit, let his hands slide down the other man's flanks to rest briefly on the top of his jeans. His lips occupied with House's mouth Wilson felt his heart flutter nervously. Under his hands heat burned, the denim dampening with sweat.

House broke the kiss as though reading Wilson's anxiety and looked for a second as though he might speak, back away; decide that it was all too much too soon.

It was enough to strengthen Wilson and at that moment his hand covered the hard shape in House's lap, drawing a sharp wheeze from his friend's lips and a twitch from his hips. Wilson bore down on him, pushing him back onto the bed, crawling over him, his fingers nimble with the zipper and fastenings of House's jeans. He felt hands on his own back, trailing down, halting at the waist to navigate horizontally along his belt line, unhitching, unclasping, material coming away, shrugged and pushed aside until skin was moving against skin and the sharp arousal of the hot heavy press of erection on erection tore through Wilson's body and drew a gasp from his lips.

He pushed down against House's hips, his mouth at his neck, then his chest, breathing him in, tasting sweat. House made a strangled noise, panted his name.

'Wilson.'

A scar, faded and twisted on his abdomen, marked by a bullet. Wilson's tongue traced the contours, aware of House's breath hitching above him, hands tangling in his hair, trying to pull him back, but he moved down, the scent of musk drawing him, moisture brushing against his chin. Lips searching now, around the base of House's arousal, tracing up and over the head, tasting. Wilson's hands pinning hips under fingertips, his mouth opening, taking House in; a gentle suction rewarded with a tremor in thighs, the twitch of his penis against Wilson's tongue.

'Ah!'

Deeper now, the rhythm steadying, quickening, bitter salt in his mouth, swallowing down. A surge of heat ran through Wilson's body, pooling at his groin, a longing, aching to be touched. House's fingers tugging at his hair pulling him away with a slick wet noise, pulling him up, flipping him back onto the pillows, covering him.

He was under House's body now and Wilson's hands reached for his lover's arms.

His lover.

The moment spilled into his memories, triggering images, recalling glimpses of the past. Pictures, words, skittering past his vision. A kiss, a taste of him, tongue pushing deeply until he moaned into his mouth.

'God... House...'

The scratch of House's stubble as he wound his way over Wilson's chest, the flicker of a tongue across a nipple, a hand resting over Wilson's heart, the steady rapid beat fluttering against his fingers so that Wilson was sure House could feel it.

In the crook of his thigh he could feel House's erection, damp with need, driven by hips which moved by instinct. Wilson reached down and shifted, grasped both of them together, his hand covered by one of House's moments later. He begin a sharp rhythm, slick and wet, pumping harder as House bit down convulsively on his clavicle, thrusting forward until his narrow hips ground hard into Wilson's, a burn of pain mingled with pleasure.

Their breathing was ragged, now, their movements governed by something beyond their control, wet bruised lips seeking out heat and moisture, teeth nipping at the most sensitive spots, openly panting, rough sounds pooling in their throats.

'Wilson... I... nngh...'

He could feel House tensing, the moment rushing on them and the awareness of his partner's arousal sent fire down Wilson's spine. House's hand tightened over his and suddenly the rhythm was faster, harder, pushing them both forward, climbing now with the choking unavoidable conclusion. Wilson's breath stuttered, his body struggling to remember how to breathe and he held it until bright spots danced in his vision. All he could feel and hear was the burning need and the sound of House as he gasped against his ear, hot and damp, erratic.

The bed under him, the sense of it pulling away, leaving just this tension, just the promise of release. Blood pounding, House's body hard against him, shaking. The light growing brighter behind his eyes, a feeling of soaring, chest tight, lungs bursting.

_Almost there._

_Drowning._

'House!'

He heard House's cry moments before his own. The hot spill of liquid across his stomach before the shock of his orgasm wrenched through him, hips bucking. Wilson's head slammed to one side and House was calling into his shoulder, his body shuddering over him, sweat and musk and senses melting.

Silence.

Silence in his mind.

The slowing pant of House against his neck.

The press of body on body, slick with spent need.

Wilson closed his eyes and drew his arms up and around House, held him, planted kisses along his skin, let his tongue trace a trail to his jaw. A gentle noise from House's throat, warm tones, calm breaths, the soft blanket of fatigue settling over them.

With a slow movement House rolled to one side, eyes closed, and Wilson watched as cool moonlight picked out his profile, a trembling anxiety teasing under the surface of content. There was a gap between them, inches, but Wilson could feel his body chilling, his damp skin cooling. He swallowed and tasted House on his tongue, waiting for the moment, the true conclusion of the night to surface, for House to rouse and with him doubt and sadness. He closed his eyes, the cold tracking into his limbs now, afraid to move, afraid to break the quiet.

He was half dozing when he felt House turn beside him, inch closer. An arm, warm and heavy, tracing over his waist, fingers brushing his back, pulling him nearer.

The faint touch of lips on his face, the nuzzle of a nose against his cheek. A hurried shrug of movement as House grasped covers and pulled them over both of them. Wilson opened his eyes drowsily as fingertips brushed his cheek and looked back into deep blue flecked with starlight. Looked back and saw...

_Dreaming now._

_Bright sun beyond the ice, bubbles soaring to the surface, heart racing, burning. He would drown if he didn't break through._

_A hand reaching down, and warmth spilling through him, the rush of air filling his lungs, the ice cracking, breaking._

_Shattered. Not drowning. _

_A voice cutting through the image, quiet and certain, a whisper from a waking breathing world._

'I love you.'

END


End file.
